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Legends and myths king arthur stories
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Geoffrey Chaucer's writings help to literature
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Over the course of the semester, this British Literature course has adequately exposed myself to a variety of works of differing styles coming from a millennium of English authors and poets. With this literary immersion, some works have proved more memorable than others. Out of these select few, I hope to choose the literary work which demonstrates the greatest combination of entertainment and morals for future readers to take away from the text. After some deliberation, I found the solution obvious, as I had to write about Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. While in reflection of the readings this semester, I could not deny that Chaucer’s collection should be preserved as the author succeeded what his stories were meant to accomplish: to “delight and instruct”. With the alluring variety of characters and entertaining situations which are described in well-chosen detail, each story provided by the pilgrims. Additionally, as each of the chosen tales (as stated in the course reading syllabus) provided a lesson that is still relevant after five centuries, the “instruction” comes from these universal morals. Therefore, in the
As Chaucer wishes to fulfill Horace’s rule of great poetry, as stated Ars Poetica, to both “delight and instruct”, the entertaining changing in narration and implication of morals does just that. In addition to the previously mentioned reasons for preservation, Chaucer’s form of writing and ability to change styles to accurately depict narration allowed his work to stand out in comparison to other English works. When taking this all into context, the need for preservation of The Canterbury Tales is
Mandell, Jerome. Geoffrey Chaucer : building the fragments of the Canterbury tales. N.J. : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992.
...ourneys, these men go in as an average man of the time, face a challenge that the Church thought a man of the day might experience, and come out purified and learned, as a man of those periods should behave. These stories are examples of how a life should be lived and the challenges that one may encounter. While the frames of these narratives change from fictitious to realistic according to the flow of Christianity-based, Northeastern literature, they each are pictures of the mentality of their times. As time progressed, so did the mentalities, which were heavily influenced by Christianity. This is evident in the slow removal of pagan beliefs in the supernatural monsters like dragons and giants into the more realistic literary frames. While all have their differences due to changing times, the hero's journey as a model for the everyday man is clear in these poems.
Chaucer identifies a pardoner as his main character for the story and utilizes the situational and verbal irony found in the pardoner’s interactions and deplorable personality to demonstrate his belief in the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church during this time. Chaucer first begins his sly jab at the Church’s motives through the description of the Pardoner’s physical appearance and attitude in his “Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a representation of the Church as a whole, and by describing the Pardoner and his defects, is able to show what he thinks of the Roman Catholic Church. All people present in the “Canterbury Tales” must tell a tale as a part of a story-telling contest, and the pilgrim Chaucer, the character in the story Chaucer uses to portray himself, writes down the tales as they are told, as well as the story teller. The description of the Pardoner hints at the relationship and similarity between the Pardoner and the Church as a whole, as well as marks the beginning of the irony to be observed throughout the “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.”
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is set up with a frame tale with 29 pilgrims, and these pilgrims are going on a journey to Canterbury to worship at the shrine of Thomas Becket. These pilgrims represented different parts of society during the time of Chaucer, and Chaucer used the pilgrims to draw critism of the different classes of his time. Chaucer used how society viewed the appearance of people and how it related it to their characteristics to make his critiques of certain aspects of society.
The structure Geoffrey Chaucer chose for his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, of utilizing a melange of narrative voices to tell separate tales allows him to explore and comment on subjects in a multitude of ways. Because of this structure of separate tales, the reader must regard as extremely significant when tales structurally overlap, for while the reader may find it difficult to render an accurate interpretation through one tale, comparing tales enables him to lessen the ambiguity of Chaucer’s meaning. The Clerk’s Tale and The Merchant’s Tale both take on the institution of marriage, but comment on it in entirely different manner, but both contain an indictment of patriarchal narcissism and conceit.
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.
“The Canterbury Tales” was written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer. These tales constitutes a frame story which each pilgrim has to tell their own story to the Chaucer, the pilgrim; not the poet. As we know, the tale itself is a satire, but the stylistic structure in the tales creates a sense that can be a parody as well. To support this idea of parody, it is need to know the definition of parody and how Chaucer use this style to make his own ideas clear through the general prologue and the tales such as “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Knight’s Tale”.
From The Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition. Ed. Larry D. Benson, Ph.D. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Chaucer, Geoffrey. A. The Canterbury Tales.
Mitchell, J. Allan. (2005). Chaucer's Clerk's Tale and the Question of Ethical Monstrosity. Studies in Philology. Chapel Hill: Winter 2005. Vol.102, Iss. 1; pg. 1, 26 pgs
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. Trans. Nevill Coghill. Literature: The British Tradition. Ed.
Chaucer’s fourteenth century story The Canterbury Tales can be considered almost impossible to read by many modern day readers. They tend to struggle thru understanding many of the words, as well as their meanings within this story. As I read The Canterbury Tales I noticed how the rhythm and rhyme differ from modern day English, the vowel are pronounced differently, and many of the words used within this story are no longer used in modern English. Additionally there are three main changes to that can be seen over time within the English language, vocabulary, pronunciation, and sentence structure. The many historical language changes that have happened since the fourteenth century can be found within The Canterbury Tales, and explain why so many people struggle to fully understand the original version of this story.
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, a collection of tales is presented during a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. The pilgrims on the journey are from divergent economic and social backgrounds but they have all amalgamated to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas. Chaucer uses each pilgrim to tell a tale which portrays an arduous medieval society. The values, morals and social structures of the society can be examined through the fictitious tales, unravelling a corrupt, unjust and manipulative world, a world that is based around an ecclesiastical society.
...an see, when reading a work such as The Canterbury Tales, there are many advantages and disadvantages to the work being in both middle and modern English. Before reading such a work, one must realize his or her own purpose for reading the work and then decide on which version to read. It is the opinion of many that it is beneficial to read both versions in order to educate one self about both languages as well as to experience the evolution of the English language. The English language has changed greatly over the many centuries since the time this work was written. However, this work helps create a bridge between the languages of the middle and modern English worlds. This was a work that transcended any work previously written and one that will continue to have an important place in the history of English literature and the English language as a whole.
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.