Canterbury Tales as a whole was very interesting. It has introduced us to a way of life that we never knew existed. It also introduced us to a type of crude humor that we have never been exposed to. It has shown us a true side of life during the Middle Ages. We have learned many things already from our World History teachers, but to experience it first hand is a different story. To experience the jokes, the merriment, and culture opens the gates to a new world. I think that these tales have been very entertaining, and enriching. I liked all the tales that I have read. I think that Geoffrey Chaucer was right to record culture the way it is, and not have toned it down to fit the needs of religion. The culture is the way it is, and no one can change it, only to record it. Chaucer recorded like he saw it, with no bias or impure intentions. He was just an author trying to write a book, for people to read and enjoy.
I think that the Miller's Tale was very interesting, and definitely showed us some of the crude humor that people in the Middle Ages liked to read about. Most of the crude descriptions, or would not even be allowed to be discussed in sex education class. It can be gruesome, yet it can also be romantic. The plot describes the two lovers, as trying to make love, yet her husband must be distracted. They scheme a clever plot to avoid detection, but a friend spoils the plan. It is a Romeo and Juliet version that is a bit twisted, and bent.
The Reeve's Tale
In the Prioress's Tale religious discrimination is a definite issue. It deals with the conflicts concerning Jewish, and Christian people. Although in today's times this religious conflict would not usually occur, it is still a minor issue. Most Christians do not despise Jewish people, and most Jewish people do not despise Christian people, in fact they seem to get along together pretty nicely. However in the Middle Ages people must have thought differently because this type of story would never be allowed in our library. However Chaucer has written the Tale in the way he felt that best expressed the times.
The Pardoner's Tale had to do with some religious issues again. In this tale it discusses different types of sins, and tells a tale of a group of boy's sins.
The Miller is hardly a likeable character. His negative depictions of love and John, the old and supposedly more learned husband, upset a few members of his audience. His tale juxtaposed with "The Knight's Tale" gives the reader valuable insight into the viewpoints of the era. The Knight still believes in honor and love at first sight whereas the Miller resorts to dishonesty every chance he gets. The General Prologue tells us that the Miller is lecherous, dishonest, clever, and eloquent. If you read the General Prologue carefully enough, the outline and themes of "The Miller's Tale" should not surprise you in the least.
Some say women can get the worst out of a man, but in The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1485, proves it. The tales were originally written as a collection of twenty four tales, but has been narrowed down to three short tales for high school readers. The three tales consist of “The Miller”, “The Knight”, and “The Wife of Bath” along with their respective prologues. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer shows the weak but strong role of women throughout the “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” to contrast different human characteristics and stereotypes on the spectrum of people.
Once upon a time, very long ago, there was a beautiful, blue eyed princess who daily visited a small village near her huge, and glossy castle. The princesses name was Paisley, and she was crazy for daisies! All she wanted to find were some daisies, and that’s exactly what she found in the small village. A handsome prince was selling talking daisies and Paisley couldn't wait to buy them!
In The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, the stereotypes and roles in society are reexamined and made new through the characters in the book. Chaucer discusses different stereotypes and separates his characters from the social norm by giving them highly ironic and/or unusual characteristics. Specifically, in the stories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller’s Tale, Chaucer examines stereotypes of women and men and attempts to define their basic wants and needs.
The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, has gone through many adaptations. Some authors decided to translate the story into verse, while others chose to write the as a narrative in prose. Although all adaptations are based off the same story, they are vastly different and can be the result of opposing interpretations of the original work. After reading a text translated by Nevill Coghill (referred to as Version I) and a text translated into a narrative by a different author (referred to as Version II), it is obvious that for each similarity they share, there are many more differences in language, syntax, and imagery as well.
Are there many ways that themes and symbols can be shown in stories? Geoffrey Chaucer uses many different themes, symbols and styles in writing all of tales in The Canterbury Tales. By using these things, Geoffrey utilizes several specific symbols to illustrate various central themes. The characters in the tales make the same mistakes that ordinary people would make, and they receive the same or even worse consequences. One message that is portrayed is greed can make people to evil actions. An example of this is in "The Pardoner's Tale," when the three friends wind up killing each other because of their greed for the money. The second message that is displayed is that one should be careful when meeting strangers and to be cautious of the sincerity of false flattery from those that one does not know. For example, in "The Nun's Priest's Tale," Chanticleer falls for false flattery from Sir Russell Fox, but then he gets even with him when he to uses it to trick Sir Russell Fox. The third and last message that is shown is that reformation in a person can occur because of some type of punishment. This theme occurs in " The Wife of Bath," in that the lady that the knight has to marry is old and ugly, but because of this punishment of having to marry her, he eventually starts to like her. As shown with the three friends in "The Pardoner's Tale", greed stabs friends in the back and deceives them into doing wrong. There are two occasions in which the three friends plot against each other so one may receive more money than the others may. First of all, the three friends find a collection of gold coins under a tree, which they decide should be theirs and they choose to try to take it. They realize ...
The characters are on a pilgrimage which is a clear indicator that the text is of religious genre. The Catholic Church, at the time, was losing many followers due to the Black Death and their lack of faith in the importance of the church. The Summoner and the Pardoner, who both represent the Catholic Church, are both described as greedy, corrupt, and abusive. This is a direct correlation to how Chaucer and many others felt about the Catholic Church during this period. The Monk and the Prioress are not described as being corrupt like the Summoner and the Pardoner; however they are described as falling short of what is considered ideal for people of their position. They both are described as being in a depressed state. Also bot...
During Chaucer’s time, there was only one church, the Roman Catholic Church. There is only one church because the Protestant movement hasn’t started yet, it started in the 16th century. Anyone who was a member of the Roman Catholic Church, for example a Pardoner, a Summoner, or a Friar, are not to have sex, or party around, as well as not having money. Chaucer notices that some of these people in the Church break these rules repeatedly. Chaucer uses satire to brilliantly describe the hypocrisy in the church. Although Chaucer may come off as anti-religious, he is religious, he is against anti-hypocrisy. The first character Chaucer uses satire on is the Friar. Chaucer tells his audience that the Friar liked to sleep around a lot with women. The Friar also got lots of girls pregnant and then married them off to men in the church. The Friar was also very wealthy, and liked to party. Which are clear violations of the church’s code. To make things worse, Chaucer said that this particular Friar was better than others. The next characters that Chaucer introduced were the Pardoner and the Summoner. The Summoner’s job in a church is to find people who have committed sin and bring them to the church so that their sins can be forgiven by the Pardoner. However, the Summoner abused his power by blackmailing people to go see the Pardoner or else they
In the poem, The Canterbury Tales, there were two characters that were completely from each other. The two characters were two parts of a whole which is a dichotomy, for example there were a ying and a yang. The parson was the light side, which is the ying and the friar represents the yang.
The Canterbury Tales, written by Chaucer, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written by an anonymous author, are both sophisticated fourteenth-century examples of medieval romance. Medieval romances captured the heart of their audiences as narratives and stories that featured a protagonist, often a knight, and dealt with religious allegories, chivalry, courtly love, and heroic epics. The concept of the knight emerged from the remnants of the Anglo-saxon literature and ideals and influence of the Christian religion and church. There is a distinct difference between the famous pagan heroic like Beowulf and the romantic medieval tales like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight of the Canterbury Tale. The Anglo-Saxon hero Beowulf exemplified qualities expected of warriors who could attain kingship by their heroism and battle deeds. They possessed the qualities of valor, military prowess, generosity, and honor. The hero fights for the survival of their tribe and nation, and it is in battle that the mettle of the epic hero is ultimately tested. The romantic conventions , influenced by Christianity and French ideals, created a new chivalric knight who sets out on a trial or adventure. They possessed similar qualities to their epic hero counterparts – valor, loyalty, honor, and skill in battle – but differed in knowing temperance, courtesy towards women, and courtly skills. The hero is no longer fighting for his people but for his ideals. By the 14th century, The Tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Canterbury Tales have began to criticize the notion of chivalry which had become old and obsolete in their society; the idealization of chivalry practiced by knights could longer withstand the complexities and indeterminateness of situa...
During the Middle Ages using the method of courtly love was very common. It was defined as a way of worshiping a woman to get their attention and love in a noble way by doing heroic deeds or just by giving the women gifts. Back then the most known courtly lovers were the knights for being known as very chivalrous and noble men. In “the Miller’s Tale”, the use of courtly love is the complete opposite of what it usually is. The story telling the story, in other words the miller makes a complete parody of courtly love and what it stands for, he makes it seem very vulgar by the way he talks about the characters in a very sexual manner and the deeds that the characters do throughout the story. I think this story was made for that purpose, to make a fool of what courtly love really is, because in reality the miller thinks that courtly love is just a waste of time and thinks it’s just foolishness to believe that love is really like that.
Again, it is not a stretch to liken the student’s carnivalesque attitudes toward the classroom to a rendering of the fabliaux. In The Canterbury Tales there are three specific carnival aspects—the marketplace, the grotesque, and laughter— clearly outlined within the fabliau of the Miller’s Tale. This section will exemplify these aspects in the Miller’s Tale in order to thresh out a clearer understanding of the Carnivalesque in literature, much as a teacher would to teach students how to identify carnivalesque themes as a literary critique. The discussion will also include how those carnival aspects appear in the classroom and how an English teacher can use the teaching of the Tales as a framing narrative which establishes a carnivalesque approach to classroom society.
we see how Chaucer the pilgrim has been swayed and convinced by what the other pilgrims tell him. So much so that he reports qualities that are often the opposite of the true personalities of the characters he is describing. This ambiguity reveals a very clever sort of irony on behalf of the writer - while Chaucer the pilgrim is easily drawn in by their deliberate misrepresentations, it is up to the readers to see how wrong he is and draw their own, more accurate, conclusions. It shows many of the pilgrims to be very different people than those symbolised by the ideal qualities they want others to see.
An interesting aspect of the famous literary work, "The Canterbury Tales," is the contrast of realistic and exaggerated qualities that Chaucer entitles to each of his characters. When viewed more closely, one can determine whether each of the characters is convincing or questionable based on their personalities. This essay will analyze the characteristics and personalities of the Knight, Squire, Monk, Plowman, Miller, and Parson of Chaucer's tale.
The Canterbury Tales is a great contemplation of stories, that display humorous and ironic examples of medieval life, which imitate moral and ethical problems in history and even those presented today. Chaucer owed a great deal to the authors who produced these works before his time. Chaucer tweaked their materials, gave them new meanings and revealed unscathed truths, thus providing fresh ideas to his readers. Chaucer's main goal for these tales was to create settings in which people can relate, to portray lessons and the irony of human existence.