Throughout history, contact between people of different cultures has been a source of conflict. This is observed especially in the medieval and early modern periods, when worldwide exploration leading to encounters between different groups of people was occurring more frequently. For a majority of those meetings, one of the groups ended up mistreating the other, and this became a popular topic for writers and poets at the time. Depending on which group the writer belonged to, the events could have been portrayed in certain light, but a large portion of the writers did not portray the events positively, despite the fact that they had more in common with the invading groups’ backgrounds than they did with the natives. Three influential writers from the medieval and modern periods, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and Bartolomé de Las Casas, illustrated those encounters in different ways. Las Casas described the encounters in a harsh and negative tone in his series of narratives written to the King of Spain. In contrast to Las Casas, Chaucer portrayed the meetings through poetry in a lighter tone. Shakespeare treaded the lightest on the subject, showing his opinion …show more content…
through his use of a tragic-comedy. Through the different forms of literature used, and the different purposes for writing, the three authors exhibited their own opinions on the interactions of different cultures. Chaucer lived in England during the 1300s as a middle class man.
He was an exceptional poet, most famous for his collection of poems and tales called The Canterbury Tales. Because of the social system of England at the time, he could not move to a different class or see the world in the way that people of higher classes could, but his status in the middle class gave him opportunities to observe the other classes. His usage of the pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales also allowed him to explore the different classes in ways he was never able to in life, while also entertaining his audience. One particular tale that displayed this was “The Man of Law’s Tale”. Compared to some of the other tales, such as the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” this had a more serious tone and message while still being
entertaining. The story revolves around Constance, a Christian Roman princess. Throughout her life, she comes into contact with people from different cultures. Many of the people from non-Christian cultures she comes into contact with are not displayed positively, highlighting Chaucer’s opinions of interactions between Christian and non-Christian cultures. In the tale, there are multiple characters that Chaucer describes and depicts as malicious, including the Syrian sultan’s mother, the pagan King Alla’s mother and the pagan knight. In Northumberland, the knight murders Hermengild and attempts to frame Constance, while being manipulated by Satan, and Alla’s mother tricks Constance and her son. In Syria, the sultan’s mother orchestrates the murder of many Christians because she does not want to form an alliance with them. By showing how the characters from different cultures acted wickedly towards the Christian people, Chaucer displayed his belief that his culture’s side of the interaction was positive, and that the natives were causing the conflicts. In contrast to the distinctly evil characters, Chaucer also included non-Christians that were honorable. The Syrian sultan that Constance was supposed to marry was an honorable man for abandoning his faith for her, as was King Alla. Though also not Christian to begin with, he was displayed as a virtuous character, especially after he converts. Their willingness to convert to a culture more similar to Chaucer’s, and to interact with the Christians juxtaposed with the antagonists’ malicious acts and refusals to change conveyed how Chaucer viewed his Christian culture more positively. It also showed that he did not perceive the actions of the people of his cultural background during interactions to be flawed, but rather that the other cultures acted wrongly. This attitude was not uncommon in Chaucer’s society and was most likely influenced by the non-existence of other religions and cultures in England during the time period that Chaucer lived. In contrast to Chaucer, Las Casas’ view of the interactions was immensely more negative. Born in Spain, but spending most of his life in Hispaniola, Las Casas was much more familiar with the setting of the interactions he wrote about than Chaucer was. Because of where he lived, he gained a perspective that lead him to write down accounts of the horror he was exposed to, and send them to the King of Spain, calling for action to stop the Spanish explorers’ terrible exploits. By conveying his thoughts through narratives, the king, and readers today, could easily understand that Las Casas was disgusted by the actions of the Spanish, and felt for the vulnerable and accepting natives. In his collection of narratives, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies Las Casas uses the method of a narrative to clearly identify his feelings towards the interactions between the Spanish explorers and the natives of the Indies. With the main objective of the text being to inform the king of Spain of the actions of the Spanish explorers, Las Casas could focus solely on conveying his thoughts and persuading the king to stop the Spaniards. Also, because the text was his account of the events, he could directly insert his opinions and point of view into the text, which created a bias that he took advantage of. He used words with extremely negative connotations, such as the use of “destruction” in the title, instead of a more neutral word that a person with an opposing opinion might have used, to express his thoughts. He also highlighted how the natives were accepting of the newcomers and their religion and included their transformation into monstrous people, due to the appalling actions of the devilish Spaniards. He also depicted the devolvement of the Spanish from people wanting to convert the natives to people playing a cruel game. The inclusion of multiple narratives for the different nations/cultures, each one with vivid details of their destruction, also helped to ensure the king understood that what Las Casas was describing was not just an isolated incident. Within each account of a different land, Las Casas included countless examples of the horrors the natives endured at the hands of the Spanish. The various cases, all containing similar disturbing descriptions of events, offered a strong argument and clear-cut statement of Las Casas’ attitudes towards the interactions between the Spanish and the people of the Indies. His utilization of the form of a narrative very successfully achieved his ultimate goal of influencing the king of Spain. Compared to Chaucer and Las Casas, Shakespeare’s opinions of the interactions between different cultures were displayed in a much different form. Similar to Chaucer’s purpose for writing The Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare wrote The Tempest in the form of a play, specifically a tragic comedy, with the intention of entertaining his audience while also expressing his beliefs. Like Las Casas, he did not view the convergence of the two cultural groups positively, but by presenting it through the form of a tragic comedy, the audience could identify that he did not feel as strongly that the events were inhumane. A tragic comedy is a type of fictional work that contains elements of humor and tragedy to convey a message. Generally characters in these stories will have exaggerated personalities that are used to both entertain the audience and emphasize certain ideas. Shakespeare used this technique to express his ideas about different cultures encountering one another. In his play, the natives and the newcomers were in conflict. Prospero, one of the foreigners, was constantly depicted as power-hungry, and controlled the natives unfairly. Though he did seem to change for the good towards the end, these characteristics were important in making the invading people appear in the wrong. The natives also had exaggerated characteristics that emphasized how Shakespeare felt. Ariel was always very obedient and honorable towards Prospero, despite Prospero’s constant threats of punishment. By emphasizing some of the negative characteristics and actions of the foreigners and the good qualities of the natives, he voiced his opinion that the less aggressive culture, commonly the native and non-European culture, was usually mistreated. This aspect of a tragic comedy was also used by Shakespeare to entertain the audience and lighten the tone of his message. In contrast to Ariel, Caliban, the other native, was repeatedly referred to as a monster, or earthly, or fishy, mainly for comic relief but also to highlight the treatment of natives by people of the foreign culture. Despite his attempt to rape Miranda, the audience is meant to feel bad for him because of how he was treated by the invaders. By creating his play in the form of a tragic comedy, Shakespeare was able to use its particular characteristics to convey his opinion on a serious topic, but in a less serious, and more entertaining way. Despite the differences in cultural backgrounds of the authors, each of the authors had an opinion on these interactions that were occurring between different cultural groups during their lifetimes, and they included their opinions in their writing. They conveyed their ideas through different methods of writing and purposes for writing, which both united them with and separated them from each other. Though the opinions of the interactions were mainly negative, the different authors would likely agree with Margaret Heffernan’s statement that “For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument [and] debate”. If it weren’t for these interactions, these famous works would not exist.
In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer demonstrates many themes such as lust, greed, and poverty. During the Canterbury tales the travelers the author himself is in the tale and he describes every character in detail. Most importantly in The Wife of Bath there is numerous examples of poverty. Thought out the tale Chaucer introduces to us a man who couldn’t control himself because of lust. As a result, he gets punished by the queen.
Indian to Indian relations could be positive, negative, or neutral. On the positive side, de Vaca notes that in the case of intra-tribe quarrels, “[if] the quarrelers are single men, they repair to some neighboring people, who, even if enemies, welcome them warmly and give so largely of what they have” (95). Warring tribes could put aside differences to help a member of the opposing tribe out. To put aside animosity and give generously to an enemy is no easy feat. This means that inter-tribe relations could display empathy and furthermore, kindness. However, de Vaca also recalls negativity during inter-tribe relations, “All these tribes are warlike, and have as much strategy for protection against enemies as if they had been reared in Italy in continual feuds” (95). This is interesting as de Vaca is drawing a comparison between the Indians to Europeans. Despite helping individuals, it is clear that rival tribes displayed animosity in larger scale interactions. Tribes engaged in war against each other much like Europeans engaged in war against each other. The fact that de Vaca draws this comparison shows an equality in how native tribes and European peoples handled adversaries. For the most part, de Vaca writing shows neutrality in Indian to Indian relations. “When the Cultalchulce...
Each European country treated the Native Americans distinctively and likewise the diverse Native Americans tribes reacted differently. The vast majority of the tribes didn’t wish to overtake the Europeans, but to rather just maintain their status quo. Moreover, Axtell mentions that during the inaugural stages of the encounter, the relationship between the two parties was rather peaceful since the Europeans were outnumbered by the natives. Axtell depicts that unlike the Europeans, the Native Americans treated the strangers equally or superior to themselves. The Indians would welcome the Europeans into their towns and shower them with gifts and blessings. The relationship between the two factions was going serene until the cultural differences became a burden on both
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.
The Virtue of Men and Women in The Canterbury Tales People never change. In every town you will always be able to find the "rich guy," the "smart guy," the "thief," and the "chief." It has been that way since the first man was swindled out of his lunch. Throughout his life, Geoffrey Chaucer encountered every kind of person and brought them to life for us in "The Canterbury Tales," a collection of short stories written in the 1300's. There are tales of saints, tales of promiscuity, tales of fraud, and tales of love.
... encountered the Taino is dependent upon the understanding the religious and historical backgrounds of both. One must understand that the mythology of the Taino, the expectations of the Spanish, and the appearances of both played a major role in the reactions of these two cultures when they collided.
Back in the late 1300’s, Geoffrey Chaucer, a famous English poet, wrote a book called The Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury was about a man named Chaucer and a group of his close friends that were traveling to the city Canterbury and had time to kill so each person started multiple short stories and made a competition out of it. As a result as to who won the story telling competition, the rest of the people in the trip had to pay for one of their meals. Boring rides to the destination might be boring but not when Chaucer is around. The Canterbury Tales shows crime, punishment and justice medieval style. Through Chaucer’s various tales he demonstrates corruption, deception, and karma.
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 life so short, the craft so long to learn” (Famous Quotes). The Canterbury Tales is enriched with humanistic merit that allows the reader to sharpen his or her own craft of life. Specifically, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Clerk’s Tale” are embodied with multiple struggles of life that pertain to life in the present. Despite seven centuries of society constantly evolving, the two stories’ plots can still be further analyzed through similar themes about relationships that pertain to modern society and how rhetorical strategy allows the audience to relate to the narrative characters.
This cultural phenomenon is what Mary Louise Pratt has termed the “contact zone” which refers to the “social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power such as colonialism, slavery or other aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world.” (Pratt 34) I believe what Pratt is referring to is the situation that is created when two completely distinct cultures, which operate on totally different levels, attempt to interact. Each culture brings with them their own values and traditions that the other culture may not entirely understand. This can often lead to confusion, misunderstandings, or sometimes worse.
The Canterbury Tales is a literary masterpiece in which the brilliant author Geoffrey Chaucer sought out to accomplish various goals. Chaucer wrote his tales during the late 1300’s. This puts him right at the beginning of the decline of the Middle Ages. Historically, we know that a middle class was just starting to take shape at this time, due to the emerging commerce industry. Chaucer was able to see the importance and future success of the middle class, and wrote his work with them in mind. Knowing that the middle class was not interested in lofty philosophical literature, Chaucer wrote his work as an extremely comical and entertaining piece that would be more interesting to his audience. Also, Chaucer tried to reach the middle class by writing The Canterbury Tales in English, the language of the middle class rather than French, the language of the educated upper class. The most impressive aspect of Chaucer’s writing is how he incorporated into his piece some of his own controversial views of society, but yet kept it very entertaining and light on the surface level. One of the most prevalent of these ideas was his view that certain aspects of the church had become corrupt. This idea sharply contrasted previous Middle Age thought, which excepted the church’s absolute power and goodness unquestionably. He used corrupt church officials in his tales to illustrate to his audience that certain aspects of the church needed to be reformed. The most intriguing of these characters was the Pardoner. Chaucer’s satirical account of the Pardoner is written in a very matter-of-fact manner that made it even more unsettling with his audience. Chaucer uses his straightforwardness regarding the hypocrisy of the Pardoner, suggestive physiognomy of the character, and an interesting scene at the conclusion of the Pardoner’s Tale to inculcate his views of the church to his audience. The way that Chaucer used these literary devices to subtly make his views known to an audience while hooking them with entertainment, shows that Chaucer was truly a literary genius.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, (written c. 1387), is a richly varied compilation of fictional stories as told by a group of twenty-nine persons involved in a religious pilgrimage to Canterbury, England during the fourteenth century. This journey is to take those travelers who desire religious catharsis to the shrine of the holy martyr St. Thomas a Becket of Canterbury. The device of a springtime pilgrimage provided Chaucer with a diverse range of characters and experiences, with him being both a narrator and an observer. Written in Middle English, each tale depicts parables from each traveler.
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.
Two of the greatest masters of British literature, Shakespeare and Chaucer, tended to look to the classics when searching for inspiration. A lesser-known example of this lies in an ancient tale from Greece about two star-crossed lovers. There are many variations on the names of these lovers, but for the purpose of solidarity, they shall henceforth be referred to as “Troilus and Criseyde” for Chaucer and “Troilus and Cressida” for Shakespeare. Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” offers up a classic tale of love that is doomed, whereas Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida” is not only tragic but also biting in its judgment and representation of characters. This difference may be due to the differences in time periods for the two authors, or their own personal dispositions, but there can be no denying the many deviations from Chaucer’s work that Shakespeare employs. Shakespeare’s work, by making the characters and situations more relatable, builds upon Chaucer’s original work, rather than improving it or shattering it.
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.