...Within English literature there may be no better descriptions of people than in the general prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Every character so perfectly profiled. Much was told about appearance, dress, habits, backgrounds and stories. He distinguishes each character by his/her profession. This makes us curious as to how he would describe many of the modern professions in his same unique manner. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales it will be interesting to include three modern characters, an astronaut, an elected politician, and a computer geek. The astronaut would be a magnificent sight to all who see him. Dressed in glimmering silvery attire the knight had the latest and greatest of everything. His dagger had many sharps edges in a new metallic case. The astronaut’s eyes were bright, full of life, and showed nothing close to a lack of intelligence. He was quiet, never spoke out of turn. Many a mile he had traveled, over land, air, and space. His eyes had gazed at what few others had, the earth….from outer space. He possessed a certain calm about him. He was wise, strong,...
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...The Wife of Bath’s Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is about a knight in King Arthur’s court that sexually assaults a young maiden. He is saved by the Queen, but she sends him on a quest to find out what women desire most. Most readers see this as either a tale about growth and understanding of women and human emotion in a time where they were not equal, or about a knight that could care less about women’s emotions and cares more about their physical forms. (add more about thesis about which one is right) This story is usually interpreted in two ways; as a story about self growth and understanding, or as a story about a selfish, bratty knight that acts like most high school students in January. For many reasons, it’s seen as a...
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...Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the worlds most famous english written. The Canterbury Tales is by far Chauncer's best known and most acclaimed work..The Canterbury Tales was written by different characters .The Wife of Bath was one of his stories that was told by Alisoun.The Wife of Bath is the most fully developed and discussed women in medieval literature. Although she is the most expierienced woman at her time knowing about marriage and relationships her prologue was viewed as anti-feminist rhetoric. The Wife of Baths is known for her attitude towards marriage and relationships that prohaps make her the best known character in The Canterbury Tales.Some critics love the Wife of Bath and her controversial prologue, proclaiming that she is a...
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...The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer is an iconic work of British literature representative of the Middle Ages. In it, a group of travelers tells twenty-four different stories, which each reveal something about their storyteller and audience. Throughout the poem, these revelations provide commentary on the social class system in England of Chaucer’s time; Chaucer’s creativity in “The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale” allows him to demonstrate several viewpoints of these interactions between the clergy and the commoners. Before examining these viewpoints, it is important to consider the historical context of the text; without it, the significance of Chaucer’s work cannot fully be grasped. Chaucer lived between approximately the years 1343 and...
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...and become less loyal. Geoffrey Chaucer, a writer from the fourteenth century, wrote a framed story called The Canterbury Tales. This work is made up of a General Prologue, which is a description of all the individual pilgrims going on the pilgrimage, followed by several tales told by these pilgrims. He describes several knight’s in this work through a chivalric code of honor. Through his description of the Knight in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, as well as the “Knight’s Tale” and the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Chaucer suggests that although chivalry...
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...Biography of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340/1345 – 1400) Geoffrey Chaucer was born between 1340 and 1345 in London and died around 1400. He was known as the ‘Father of English literature’ and established the English writing instead of the French and Latin. He was a page to the Countess of Ulster, Elisabeth, who was the wife of the third son of King Edward III. He met Philippa Roet when both were around 10 years old; they both worked in the palace to take care of the Queen’s daughter Philippa of Eltham. In 1359 Geoffrey went off to war in France. He was taken prisoner and the King paid part of his ransom, so he could get away. After this he went to serve the King. In 1366 he married Philippa Roet-Chaucer. In September 1369 he wrote a book for a Duchess, it was called ‘The Book of the Duchess’. In 1370 Geoffrey traveled for the king to France, Genoa, Florence and possibly other places we don’t know about. He stayed loyal to the King, but tried to focus himself on his literally work more around 1378, which was the year in which he made his last journey for the King Edward III. In 1380 a rape-claim was filed against him. Cecile Campaigne claimed to be raped by the writer and Geoffrey was sentenced to a debt of ten pounds (which was around half his money for the year at the time) and he paid it. This is said to be true, but we don’t have proof other than a legal record. In 1387 Philippa died, of unknown reasons. On the 24th of December in 1399 Chaucer rented a place in the gardens...
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...The Canterbury Tales author · Geoffrey Chaucer type of work · Poetry (two tales are in prose: the Tale of Melibee and the Parson’s Tale) genres · Narrative collection of poems; character portraits; parody; estates satire; romance; fabliau language · Middle English time and place written · Around 1386–1395, England date of first publication · Sometime in the early fifteenth century publisher · Originally circulated in hand-copied manuscripts narrator · The primary narrator is an anonymous, naïve member of the pilgrimage, who is not described. The other pilgrims narrate most of the tales. point of view · In the General Prologue, the narrator speaks in the first person, describing each of the pilgrims as they appeared to him. Though narrated by different pilgrims, each of the tales is told from an omniscient third-person point of view, providing the reader with the thoughts as well as actions of the characters. tone · The Canterbury Tales incorporates an impressive range of attitudes toward life and literature. The tales are by turns satirical, elevated, pious, earthy, bawdy, and comical. The reader should not accept the naïve narrator’s point of view as Chaucer’s. tense · Past setting (time) · The late fourteenth century, after 1381 setting (place) · The Tabard Inn; the road to Canterbury protagonists · Each individual tale has protagonists, but Chaucer’s plan is to make none of his storytellers superior to others; it is an equal company. In the Knight’s Tale, the protagonists are...
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...The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer talks about a pilgrimage. In this story “a group is gathered at Tabard Inn to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket at Canterbury.” (Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. South Carolina McDougall Little British literature. Ed. Janet Allen et. al. Houghton Mifflin, Co. 2009. p.140 ). The host decided to let the group to tell stories to pass time on their way. In this story there are Chaucer’s saints who are honest, ready to help, faithful and on the other hand, there are scoundrels who are greedy, hypocrites, liars. Chaucer's saints are Knight, Parson, and Plowman, and the rest where bad and good in ways. Every character on this pilgrimage have differences and similarities. Saints and...
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...observing the principles of the time, and exploring the literature which addresses them. By analyzing the religious, political and societal ideals, the reader can see how these influenced the literature during this time period. The Medieval Period was a time in history that lasted from the 5th Century to the 16th Century. Through the early Middle Ages, literacy was often essential for entry into religious orders and even nuns were compelled to meet this requirement. However, the only people trained to read and write properly were those who were high church officials and monks. Society was centered mainly on the Medieval Church. However, the Church became corrupted but more at the higher levels. Geoffrey Chaucer illustrated this in his writings, “Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.” He exposes this in his prologue by his use of satire in regards to the religious figures. Using a naïve “Chaucer the Pilgrim” to describe them, he points out that certain characters, namely the Prioress and the Monk, are not as they should be. Although he does not criticize them openly, he merely emphasizes qualities that are favorable to the character’s general personality but are not consistent with the expectations of their position. For example, the Prioress is described as “straining to counterfeit a courtly kind of grace.” She wears “a coral trinket on her arm” despite her vow of poverty. By making the reader more aware of the Prioress as a woman than as a nun, Chaucer exposes her flawed ways...
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...Miranda Coker Mrs. Ashley Coker English IV Honors 9 January 2015 The Corruption of the Medieval Catholic Church in The Canterbury Tales In the Fourteenth Century, the Catholic Church took over Ireland, England, and almost all of Europe. Through a number of Crusades, which spanned about two hundred years, the church acquired a great amount of wealth. As a result of this tremendous accumulation of wealth, as well as an over emphasis on lavish places of worship, cathedrals were built in all of the larger cities. However, the communities of the middle and lower class in society suffered from poverty, resulting in sickness and death (“Greed and Corruption in The Canterbury Tales” 1). Why sit back, turn a deaf ear, and watch the people suffer and die while spending a fortune on places of worship? This is most likely the reason why Geoffrey Chaucer portrays some characters in The Canterbury Tales, such as the Pardoner, Friar, and Monk, as being greedy and often hypocritical. The Pardoner is a perfect example of this corruption. His work in the church is to hear the confessions of wrong-doers and pardon them of their sins. As he travels, he confesses to using a particular tale to manipulate his audiences. The Pardoner explains that he pushes guilt into the people by telling them that greed is the root of all evil, in order to coax them into giving him offerings. These offerings go directly into his greedy hands. Hardly a man of God, he demonstrates or reveals his self-centered...
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...MAIN CHARACTERS IN “THE CANTERBURY TALES” BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER COURSE PAPER PRESENTED BY LILIA YAREMA a fourth year student of the English department SUPERVISED BY SPODARYK O. V. an assistant professor of the English department LVIV 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………… 3-4 CHAPTER I. THEORETICAL ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS…… 5-16 1.1 Linguistic analysis……………………………………………… 5-8 1.2 Discourse and Text analyses….…………….………………….. 9-11 1.3 Stylistic analysis ………………………………………………… 12-16 CHAPTER II. LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF CHAUCER’S CHARACTERS 17-28 2.1 “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” ……………………………………… 18-22 2.2 “The Pardoner’s Tale” ………………………………………….. 23-28 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………. 29-30 REFERENCES...… ………………………………………………………….. 31-32 INTRODUCTION The theme of the course paper is “Linguistic means of portraying main characters in “The Canterbury tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer”. This paper intends to make an analysis of the language in the collection of stories “The Canterbury Tales”, written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of 14th century. We will analyze the language used to describe characters. It was based on the idea that every choice made by the author of a sentence is meaningful. Therefore, once we understand the choices the author makes when describing a character, we are able to have a better understanding of what this author expects of the readers. Geoffrey Chaucer is recognized as...
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...Geoffrey Chaucer’s collection of stories titled The Canterbury Tales and Dante Alighieri’s three-part poem The Divine Comedy have certain similarities and some differences that often have a religious theme. One of the most obvious comparisons between the two is that both authors wrote about significant journeys. While Dante wrote about traveling through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, Chaucer wrote about a group of people occupying their time while they traveled. The two authors had contrasting writing styles when discussing those journeys; Chaucer’s was more light-hearted and sometimes even risqué, while Dante’s was more consistently solemn and meticulous. Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, and Dante, author of The Divine Comedy, had some...
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...The Canterbury Tales is an undoubtedly a richly textured work that draws in and combines many different elements of many genres. As a collection of tales it forms a rich tapestry woven from a selection of threads that neatly cover the spectrum of Chaucer's society, and utilises a range of styles which are appropriately diverse and which suit the personality of each individual storyteller. But the casually adopted view that Chaucer utilised a separate genre for each of his tales is an over-simplification of a far more subtle overall generic scheme. For a start, Caroline D. Eckhardt explains that up to the twelfth century, Medieval statements about genre, such as those of Isidore of Seville, Bernard of Utrecht, Honorius of Autun and Matthew of Vendome, usually accounted for no more than four identifiable poetic genres. In the thirteenth century, Geoffrey of Vinsauf and John of Garland extended these lists, though not by much. At this time, the concepts of tragedy and comedy had little to do with humour or pathos, but were instead measures of the movement of fortunes of the characters involved, as well as their social status; Geoffrey of Vinsauf describes comedy as "a rustic song dealing with humble persons, beginning in sadness and ending in joy"(CTC 181) and tragedy as a work "showing the misfortunes of grave persons, beginning in joy and ending in grief"(CTC 181). By today's standards, these interpretations of genre seem rather constrictive...
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...Geoffrey Chaucer’s 489-page anthology book, The Canterbury Tales, describes a tale in which characters of different social classes embark on a pilgrimage to Canterbury to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. The Host proposes that each person tell two tales on the way to and from Canterbury in order to make the journey more pleasant, and the person who tells the best story will receive a free dinner at the Tabard Inn. Geoffrey, one of the pilgrims on the journey, narrates the character descriptions from the prologue and the stories of each person bringing many aspects of late medieval society to life. Among the story-tellers who reveal themselves are the Knight and the Parson. Although both characters live out similar virtues and possess...
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...The Transformation of Language and The Pardoner’s Tale Summary: The Pardoner’s Tale is a moral story of greed and treachery, in which three young hooligans go on a quest to find Death so they can kill him. Instead of finding Death, they find a golden treasure, and their scheming over the hoard leads them to murder each other, so that their original purpose is fulfilled. Although this is a solemn tale teaching that “greed is the root of all evil,” the Pardoner is a con artist of the highest degree, a rap artist who preaches morality strictly for his own profit, merchandising and scamming his way to a fortune at the expense of his poor fans. Baba Brinkman’s solo performance, “The Rap Canterbury Tales,” first appeared at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004. It is a re-creation of Chaucer’s fourteenth century poem, in which a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury enter into a tale-telling contest. Every element of the performance closely parallels Chaucer’s original text, but in a contemporary setting. Baba Brinkman plays Chaucer, who is both the narrator and a participant in the pilgrimage. In this case, he is a hip-hop fan who goes to a rap concert and manages to stow away on the tour bus after the show. The rappers, to his surprise, decide to stage a storytelling battle to help pass time on the road between gigs, and each of the Tales is an exact retelling of one of the pilgrim stories. As the narrator, Brinkman/Chaucer attempts to recount the exact experience...
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