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Essay topics for medieval europe
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Following the fall of the great Roman Empire a new age was born, the age of knights in shining amour and the great kings in stone castles. Yet, it was also a chaotic time, War and plague was a disease upon Europe. Countries fought for land, resources, and above all, the attention of God. The world was young and so was the English Language. Few writers wrote in English, the language of the commoners, as French and Latin was the Language of the powerful élite. Yet one writer dared to speak against the feudal society of which he was born into. Geoffrey Chaucer served most of his life in the employment of the crown, as both a soldier and a clerk. Yet through all of these titles, Chaucer would be forever immortalized as Geoffrey Chaucer the writer, and the Satirist. The true goal of any Satire is to point out the flaws in certain aspect of society, while also inspiring reform to that very same aspect in one way or another. In Chaucer’s Canterbury tales, Chaucer satirizes the corruption Catholic Church and those associated. Chaucer saw that hypocrisy polluted the pureness of the church and expressed his disillusionment through the use of satire. Fearless of discommunication Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of satire, dared to speak openly of the absolute corruption of the medieval church. Medieval society was centered on the flawed Catholic Church, where hypocrisy and corruption poisoned the purity of religion. When one individual spoke against the way the church‘s way, the church would simply retaliate. One such example is that of Joan of Arc, a French farm girl turned soldier. The Church was outraged at her choices, performing deeds that were reserved for men. Joan wore men’s clothing and wore her hair short as to avoid being the s... ... middle of paper ... ...t man in a time of great despair. Through the greatness of his actions, satirically pointing out the corruption in the Catholic church, Chaucer earned a reputation as one of the greatest writers in the English language. Fearless of the Church’s retaliation, Chaucer continued to educate his audience, the English speaking commoners of Medieval Europe, who had long been taken advantage of by the Church, becoming one the greatest and first English satirist and the Father of English satire. Works Cited Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales in Modern Verse . “The Prologue”. Hackett Publishing Company, INC. United States of America, 2005. Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Canterbury tales: The Prologue”. Our Literary Heritage. Ed. Desmond Pacey. 4th ed. Montreal, Que.: Mcgraw-Hill Ryerson ltd., 1982. Shaw, Bernard. Saint Joan. Penguin books, London 1952.
Boardman, Phillip C. "Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)." Enduring Legacies: Ancient and Medieval Cultures. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson Custom Pub., 2000. 430-54. Print.
In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer fully explicates the cultural standard known as curteisye through satire. In the fourteenth century curteisye embodied sophistication and an education in French international culture. The legends of chilvalric knights, conversing in the language of courtly love, matured during this later medieval period. Chaucer himself matured in the King's Court, and he reveled in his cultural status, but he also retained an anecdotal humor about curteisye. One must only peruse his Tales to discern these sentiments. In the General Prologue, he meticulously describes the Prioress, satirically examining her impeccable table manners. In the Miller's Tale Chaucer juxtaposes courtly love with animalistic lust, and in various other instances he mentions curteisye, or at least alludes to it, with characteristic Chaucerian irony. These numerous references provide the reader with a remarkably rich image of the culture and class structure of late fourteenth century England.
However, after hearing his tale it is quite shocking about his frankness about his own hypocrisy. We know that he bluntly accuses himself of fraud, avarice, and gluttony, all things that he preaches against throughout this tale. It is in lines, 432-433 that the Pardoner states, “But that is not my principal intent; I preach nothing but for convenience.” It is here that we truly begin to learn that The Pardoner’s Tale is merely an example of a story that is often used by preachers to emphasize a moral point to their audience. That is why, this tale in particular helps to comprehend Chaucer’s own opinions, and how he used satire to display them.
...irony, the corruption he believes can be found in the Church, pointing at its common tendency in this time to take advantage of the people through its power. He also shows through the Pardoner that perhaps immoral people cannot guide people to morality, through subtle lines such as “For though myself be a ful vicious man,/ A moral tale yit I you telle can” (GP 171-172). Through Chaucer’s portrayal of the Pardoner in this tale, the audience is able to see that the Pardoner is a self-absorbed, greedy man that mirrors what the author thinks of the Church, and that the Pardoner is the exact opposite of what he preaches, which also points towards the supposed corruption of the Church. The irony found throughout this work serves the important purpose of bringing attention to the dishonesty and fraud Chaucer believes can be found in the Roman Catholic Church at this time.
Critics interpreting Chaucerian depictions of drunkenness have traditionally focused on the state as an unalloyed vice, citing variously as justification the poet’s Christian conservatism, his intimate association with the disreputable London vintner community, and even possible firsthand familiarity with alcoholism. While we must always remain vigilant to the evils of excessive inebriation, to portray Chaucer’s images of drink and revelry in The Canterbury Tales as an unqualified denunciation is to oversimplify the poet’s work and to profane his art. By fusing his portrayals of drunkenness with the revelation of truth and philosophical insight, Chaucer demonstrates the capacity of wine and ale to evoke the funky earthiness of humanity that we so desperately seek to avoid and that is so fundamental to our corporeal experience.
First, it is essential to know the definition of parody as “the imitative use of the words, style, attitude, tone and ideas of an author in such a way as to make them ridiculous. Its purpose may be corrective as well as derisive” (Cuddon, 660). What Chaucer wants to prove in the course of the tales is that how ridiculous is the society showing certain behaviour codes using irony or simply mocking of the stereotypes that people believed important in that epoch.
Chaucer’s book The Canterbury Tales presents a frame story written at the end of the 14th century. It narrates the story of a group of pilgrims who participate in a story-telling contest that they made up to entertain each other while they travel to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Because of this, some of the tales become particularly attractive for they are written within a frame of parody which, as a style that mocks genre, is usually achieved by the deliberate exaggeration of some aspects of it for comic effect. Chaucer uses parody to highlight some aspects of the medieval society that presented in an exaggerated manner, not only do they amuse the readers, but also makes them reflect on them. He uses the individual parody of each tale to create a satirical book in which the behaviours of its characters paint an ironic and critical portrait of the English society at that time. Thus, the tales turn satirical, ironic, earthy, bawdy, and comical. When analysing the Knight’s and the Miller’s tale, one can realise how Chaucer mocks the courtly love convention, and other social codes of behaviour typical of the medieval times.
Scanlon, Larry. "A Variorum Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 2: The Canterbury Tales: The General Prologue" Speculum, 72(January 1997):127-129
If one has ever read the General Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, they will find the attitude of Chaucer to be very opinionated and complex toward the members of the clergy. Some of the clergy consists of the Monk, the Prioress (also known as the nun), and the Friar. Chaucer has gone into depth of each one of these members in each section of the Prologue. From reading each section and analyzes his attitude towards each member, it is portrayed that Chaucer has a complex attitude of appreciation and dishonesty towards the members of the clergy.
Geoffrey Chaucer was a on a mission when he wrote The Canterbury Tales. That mission was to create a satire that attacked three major institutions. Raphel displays, “Medieval society was divided into three estates: the Church (those who prayed), the Nobility (those who fought), and the Patriarchy. The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an estates satire.” Chaucer wanted to shed light on the institutions that were taking advantage of the everyday man. Chaucer does this by making up tales about certain people that she light to the undercover world of the institutions. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses satire to attack the Church, the Patriarchy, and the Nobility.
The Medieval period of The Canterbury Tales is held on April 11, 1387. The writing style of tales are literary skilled. “There is clear evidence in them that Chaucer was familiar with a considerable number of the great book of his time, and it is fairly well established that his writings show a steady increase in his literary skill” (Chaucer xxxvii). Chaucer is a writer of surprise. His stories not only come from plots of other writers but also from his lifetime. “There is of course no explaining where or how Chaucer acquired his ability as a great storyteller. However, the fact that he was a man of affairs as well as a man of books, a civil servant who dealt frequently with people from all walks of life, seem to have had great influence on the writing he did at night when he returned home from the office” (Chaucer xxxv). The Prioress tells an anti-Semitic tale, which reflects her position among the clergy.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a piece of work that resembles both a historical and sociological introduction the late middle ages. Chaucer’s ability to interpret basic human nature from different viewpoints is exemplified in the characters he created. I have selected two stories, The Prioress Tale and The Knights Tale, within the Canterbury Tales that manifest the strengths and weaknesses of human character. Than I will compare Chaucer’s pilgrims to figures portrayed by Dante in the Divine Comedy.
Chaucer is not some unknown literary author who is known only by a dozen people in the English field. Besides Shakespeare, Chaucer is probably one of the most well-known contributors to English literature, if not the most well-known. His name is instantly recognizable, and many a high school student learned of him through the oftentimes-painful reading of his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s work is an extremely important text in terms of the evolution of the English language; The Canterbury Tales set itself apart from other literary works at the time by being one of the first pieces of literature to be written in English instead of French, and its extreme popularity spurred the creations of even more English literature, allowing the language to regain its prominence and evolve into the English we know today (“Chaucer”; Kemmer). Today, it’s the most prominent example of Middle English work, and is studied not just for its literary worth but as evidence of what the language was like at the time. The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer’s importance are extreme, and the author enjoyed his fame during his life as well as long after, largely due to his abilities to make sound decisions, take risks, learned to learn as a professional, and transfer knowledge, skills that people even today can utilize to be successful.
Chaucer's Irony - The Canterbury Tales Chaucer's Irony Irony is a vitally important part of The Canterbury Tales, and Chaucer's ingenious use of this literary device does a lot to provide this book with the classic status it enjoys even today. Chaucer has mastered the techniques required to skilfully put his points across and subtle irony and satire is particularly effective in making a point. The Canterbury Tales are well-known as an attack on the Church and its rôle in fourteenth century society. With the ambiguity introduced by the naïve and ignorant "Chaucer the pilgrim", the writer is able to make ironic attacks on characters and what they represent from a whole new angle. The differences in opinion of Chaucer the pilgrim and Chaucer the writer are much more than nuances - the two personas are very often diametrically opposed so as to cause effectual irony.
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories in the