...and situations he creates within his writing. In the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer utilizes rhyme scheme and detailed imagery of both physical traits and personality traits in his description of the Prioress and the Pardoner to satirize the fourteenth-century practice of sending individuals who lack any ecclesiastical tendencies to work in the church. While the Pardoner represents...
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...The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer Key Facts full title · 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...
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...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. He also does the same...
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...Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Image you lived in a world where living in the middle class made you a well respected citizen, well this is the world imagined in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. This was a world re-imagined taking the norm of knight and nobility being top class, and turning it around. This promoted peasant and middle class to rise up make something for themselves. The idea that a person in the middle class could afford to go on a pilgrimage like the one described in The Canterbury Tales. Some topics focused on are in the Canterbury Tales were; why is the rise of middle class so evident in Chaurcer’s tales, and what did the rising of the middle class look and consist of? How is the rise of the middle class evident in this tale, and where is the middle class in the tale from, and why is the rise of the middle class such a surprise and so significant. Many characteristics make up the medieval time period present in Chaucer’s tale, and what is the significance of this...
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...TITLE · 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...
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...In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer shows us a vivid glimpse into the medieval society. Through his work we have been able to determine how people of each social class and profession have been stereotyped. These stereotypes could possibly have been true for many individuals, giving us more of an insight to these olden times. In the beginning of the novel, Chaucer gives a descriptive prologue to each of the twenty-nine characters. Through these descriptions we are shown who is admired by the author and who is disliked. Though this is done very discreetly, it is still very prevalent. These prologues describe each and every character in extreme detail. Chaucer goes on to describe their character and appearance as well as what each does for a living and their social class. While describing the characters he admires, he paints them as being very good looking and having noble personalities. On the other hand, the ones he hates the most are shown in a very negative light on both appearance and personality alike. The reason he dislikes the people he does is due to their social standing....
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...Nun Prioress In the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer describes the character of the Nun Prioress. He does not dislike her and does not think that she is evil, however, he understands that, as a daughter of an aristocrat, she does not belong in the convent among others serving God. Her vanity, misplaced sympathy, and desire to be in love make her unsuitable to be a nun. Chaucer communicates this through criticism by omission, meaning that he purposely avoids commenting on all the details a reader would expect to find in the description of a nun. Chaucer includes details about the Nun Prioress is to prove that he does not think that she is an unpleasant woman. She is “certainly very cheerful, most pleasant, and amiable in bearing” (137-138). She concentrates very hard on appearing well-behaved and proper. She sings and speaks French well and has very excellent table manners. Her features are sweet and she dresses herself very well in a flattering cloak with a rosary made of expensive coral beads and a golden brooch pinned to her. Chaucer also includes that she has “...tender feelings [and is] so charitable and so full of pity] that she weeps at the sight of an injured or dead mouse or if someone hits one of the lap dogs she keeps. The Nun Prioress hopes that by showing she is capable of proper etiquette and appears “to be stately in manner, [that she will] appear worthy of reverence” (140-141). However, she has not been placed in a convent to be admired...
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...such a way that they seem personally experienced. Imagination is always associated with the created power and is a poetic principle. It is a transforming power as it has the ability to change the usual and ordinary in an unusual and uncommon way. Poetry is a modified "image of man and nature”. The poet is able to impart "the glory and freshness of a dream" to ordinary things of nature. He can present in his poetry the light that never was on land and sea. He is able to do so to the creative faculty of imagination. It is thus an active power. Poet is not a passive reflector of images formed from nature. He is a man who not only feels strongly but also thinks long and deeply. He is able to treat absent things as if they are present. Here Canterbury tales present an example of this imaginative power to visualize objects which are not present before poet’s eyes in their concrete forms but he presents them before us that they seem real. 29 pilgrims of Chaucer are his imaginative characters, all their qualities, merits and demerits are his own creations and here his creation is supported by his imagination. Imagination enables the poet to look deep into the heart and soul of things. It is through the imaginative faculty that he arrives at...
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...In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer described a lot of corrupt characters which began on April 11, 1387 who is The Friar, the Monk, the Prioress, the Summoner, and the Pardoner. These characters played an important role. Most Chaucer favored, some was neutral, and some he did not favor. To me some of the characters are great but most are not true to their character. A brief description of these characters will tell how they are corrupt, their character, and additional information. Here lived The Friar’s by name of Hubert. The Friar occupation as a character is a beggar. The Friar Class is the Aristocracy. He keeps the hood filled with pins for curls and has pocked-knives to give to “pretty girls”. His voice is gay and sturdy....
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...Shlok Kumar Professor Padma Baliga English Literature Upto 1900 13 September 2010 The Canterbury Tales and the Panchatantra: Two Frame Narratives contrasted The East has a wonderful tradition in teaching morals through interesting tales; India has given the world the earliest such tales in the form of the Panchatantra, the Hitopadesa and even the Puranas. The Canterbury Tales and the Panchatantra are both frame narratives- often known as ‘story within a story.’ Yet the target audience of both these works is different. And this arises from the nature of these works. Whilst The Canterbury Tales was written by Chaucer originally for a courtly, upper class audience, the Panchatantra was written to teach the high morals and sensibilities of Vedic literature to three disinterested princes in the simplest language, using animals as symbols and characters. Indeed, the Panchatantra and its derivative work, the Hitopadesa are often dismissed as stories for children. Though these fables are indeed vastly instructive, they also teach a way of thriving in the material world and a way of life itself; the Panchatantra is referred to as a niti-shastra. This paper attempts to contrast the Canterbury Tales with the Panchatantra and illustrate the manner in which the latter is a niti-shastra without being merely populated by abstruse, pithy phrases. We know that in The Canterbury Tales, a group of about 30 pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from...
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...oguyguihoi jigijiop jtfuytfrt5 ertyf deree ws 5rgy u The Knight The Knight rides at the front of the procession described in the General Prologue, and his story is the first in the sequence. The Host clearly admires the Knight, as does the narrator. The narrator seems to remember four main qualities of the Knight. The first is the Knight’s love of ideals—“chivalrie” (prowess), “trouthe” (fidelity), “honour” (reputation), “fredom” (generosity), and “curteisie” (refinement) (General Prologue, 45–46). The second is the Knight’s impressive military career. The Knight has fought in the Crusades, wars in which Europeans traveled by sea to non-Christian lands and attempted to convert whole cultures by the force of their swords. By Chaucer’s time, the spirit for conducting these wars was dying out, and they were no longer undertaken as frequently. The Knight has battled the Muslims in Egypt, Spain, and Turkey, and the Russian Orthodox in Lithuania and Russia. He has also fought in formal duels. The third quality the narrator remembers about the Knight is his meek, gentle, manner. And the fourth is his “array,” or dress. The Knight wears a tunic made of coarse cloth, and his coat of mail is rust-stained, because he has recently returned from an expedition. The Knight’s interaction with other characters tells us a few additional facts about him. In the Prologue to the Nun’s...
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...My pilgrim of choice is Madam Eglentine, a prioress described in the general prologue of the Canterbury Tales. I selected this specific character because Chaucer seems to applaud her seemingly genteel and honorable exterior while also foreshadowing the “scandalous” type of background of the nun. I chose to modernize Madam Eglentine in part because I found her character to be timeless; while Chaucer sets the character of the nun to be on a pilgrimage in the early 14th century, many of her characteristics, namely her multiple personas, enable her to be relatable even in the 21st century. I highlighted Madam Eglentine’s facial features and stately manner because I felt like those external features embodied the values of the person she exemplified. Because she is stately, “her mouth very small, and therewith soft and red” (152), Eglentine seems the ideal person to “weep, if only she saw a mouse caught in a trap, if it were dead or bleeding” (144). Since I highlighted her facial features and external characteristics in the image, which I believe would lead many to guess to her inner sensitivity, I only briefly discussed her “caring” nature in the couplets. Because the nun is now modernized, I also found it meanwhile to write the words “Love conquers all” (162) on her blouse instead of on her brooch. This creates a more contemporary look while strongly emphasizing the prioress’s odd fashion statement. The rest of the nun’s look is classic, because even though Eglentine is modernized...
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...A Conjecture on the Wife of Bath's Prologue Author(s): Richard F. Jones Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Oct., 1925), pp. 512-547 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27702906 Accessed: 17-08-2015 10:45 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 182.69.107.77 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 10:45:38 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A CONJECTURE ON THE WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE of Bath's the Wife When for the first reading Prologue time, I remember my surprise upon reaching line 193 to find continued for several hundred lines, whereas that the Prologue a tale to follow. With I had expected each reading since, I in adjusting my expecta the same difficulty have experienced found. This repeated experience, ...
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...Summary of CT The Canterbury Tales begins with the introduction of each of the pilgrims making their journey to Canterbury to the shrine of Thomas a Becket. These pilgrims include a Knight, his son the Squire, the Knight's Yeoman, a Prioress, a Second Nun, a Monk, a Friar, a Merchant, a Clerk, a Man of Law, a Franklin, a Weaver, a Dyer, a Carpenter, a Tapestry-Maker, a Haberdasher, a Cook, a Shipman, a Physician, a Parson, a Miller, a Manciple, a Reeve, a Summoner, a Pardoner, the Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself. Congregating at the Tabard Inn, the pilgrims decide to tell stories to pass their time on the way to Canterbury. The Host of the Tabard Inn sets the rules for the tales. Each of the pilgrims will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two stories on the return trip. The Host will decide whose tale is best for meaningfulness and for fun. They decide to draw lots to see who will tell the first tale, and the Knight receives the honor. The Knight's Tale is a tale about two knights, Arcite and Palamon, who are captured in battle and imprisoned in Athens under the order of King Theseus. While imprisoned in a tower, both see Emelye, the sister of Queen Hippolyta, and fall instantly in love with her. Both knights eventually leave prison separately: a friend of Arcite begs Theseus to release him, while Palamon later escapes. Arcite returns to the Athenian court disguised as a servant, and when Palamon escapes he suddenly finds Arcite. They fight over Emelye, but...
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...Out of the Ordinary, the Wife of Bath. Novelist and philosopher C. Joy Bell, author of “Saint Paul Trois Chateaux” and “Sun is snowing” once said, “I don’t fit into any stereotype and I like myself that way” (Bell). This is the exact description of the Wife of Bath as she is the kind of person that stands out from the rest. Although she comes from the medieval period, she has characteristics of a modern woman such as power and affluence. During the medieval period, women were viewed as subordinate creatures to men. A typical medieval woman married and began raising children soon after reaching puberty. Husbands had full control over their wives and a wife had to be loyal to her husband and obey him at all times. Blewitt described this saying; “A wife . . . must please her husband and be totally obedient to him, even when he is unjust and violent” (Blewitt 662). A woman’s sole purpose was to bear children, ". . . a wife's first duty was to provide her husband with an heir, and she could be divorced if she were barren"(Rhinesmith 601). They remained largely indoors, having no true chance to receive a formal education or hold economic or social power. The Wife of Bath is a complete opposite of the typical medieval woman. Although she married early, she is not under the control of any man. In fact, she uses sexual power to control her husbands by depriving them of sex in order to get what she wants. Another thing that distinguishes her from the typical medieval woman is that she...
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