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Introduction to the canterbury tales
The Canterbury Tales-Literary Analysis Essay
Introduction to the canterbury tales
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While reading old texts, it is an important strategy for readers to look up words that they are unsure of the meaning. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is no exception. There are many words within this text with which modern readers are unfamiliar. Often times, there are nuances to the writing that can be overlooked if the full meaning of the language is not understood. One such example is the word “gentilesse” which is used in The Wife of Bath’s Tale. In this tale, the lady discusses the nature of nobility with a knight. By using the word “gentilesse,” she is referencing a specific type of nobility that is passed down through noble birth lines in the same manner as a title passes from father to son. But after mentioning “gentilesse,” she immediately argues against its existence. Using the word “gentilesse,” the Wife of Bath is able to effectively argue that nobility is a characteristic that one earns through their actions, not one that is passed down a family line. …show more content…
The Wife of Bath begins her argument by stating what most knights of the time believe: that his gentilesse, or “nobility of birth or rank” is handed down in a father-to-son line, just like a noble title (MED).
However, she immediately states, “Swich arrogance is nat worth an hen, ” essentially saying that she does not care for his logic at all (Chaucer 1118). This statement holds extra meaning to it because she says it directly to a knight. Knights during Chaucer’s time were highly devoted to their codes of chivalry. Included in their code of chivalry was the idea of being noble. Her statement against this commonly held notion of where nobility of character comes from immediately undermines the knight’s authority in their
conversation. Instead, the lady says that a person’s nobility is earned through good deeds, not granted automatically with their title. By claiming that the nobility the knight possesses is meaningless without action behind it, she is once again diminishing his knighthood, but this time in a more direct manner. To back up her bold statement, she looks to Jesus Christ as the ultimate example of noble behavior. She states, “Crist wol we claime of him oure gentilesse,/Nat of our eldres for hir ‘old richesse’” (1123-1124). She goes on to say that the character trait of nobility in a person (gentilesse) comes from the actual existence of Christ (1130). By stating that Christ is the only source from which nobility in a person can come, then she is reiterating her original point that gentilesse does not exist in the patronymic fashion that was held as standard. In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, a lady gives a knight a lecture on where nobility comes from. Chaucer uses the word “gentilesse” in his text as a way to refer to a type of nobility that is granted to someone at birth. The Wife of Bath spends a short amount of time refuting the existence of this trait, and instead says that all nobility comes from Jesus Christ as a result of the good deeds we perform. Without the basic understanding of the word “gentilesse,” the reader of Chaucer’s tale would have a difficult time grasping the meaning of the text. While reading old texts, like The Canterbury Tales, it is important to be able to look up definitions of unfamiliar words in order to be able to see all the nuances of the text.
The use of euphemism and crudeness in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” is simultaneously unnerving and amusing, and begs the question of how a “wicked” woman like The Wife could ever actually progress in medieval society. Chaucer incorporates subtle allusions to female sexual organs and it is this bluntness (that would raise eyebrows even today) which establishes the Wife as such a powerfully outspoken character. Because courtship in Chaucer’s time was considered worthy of complete submission, the fact that the Wife places such emphasis on domination and even psychological power hints at her being an object of irony (and not a feminist figure “before her time”). It is for this reason that Chaucer’s delicate use of “queynte”- a term from which
The dominance of men in the Middle Ages is unethical, irrational, and dangerous; women are given few rights and the opportunity to earn rights is non-existent. The dictates to the dominance is formed by the internal combination of man’s personal desire and religious interference. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, the combined perspectives’ on a haughty Pardoner and non-subservient wife is the stronghold of separation in moral roles. The moral roles between men and women are exemplified in the rankings of religious hierarchy for men are at the top and women towards the bottom. Even prestigious women, ones with noble connections, are subservient to men, but contradictorily have religious affiliations. The “Wife of Bath’s Tale” is a perfect example of defying man’s dominance and the “Pardoner’s Tale”, a problematic reasoning of why selfishness connects moreover to the manipulation. The frailties of religious reasoning however, will cause The Pardoner and the Wife of Bath to be separated from society’s morals.
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.
The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale. Geoffery Chaucer. The Middle Ages, Volume 1A. Eds. Christopher Baswell and Anne Howland Schotter. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Fourth ed. Gen.eds David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2010. 375-408. Print.
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.
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 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.
In his story titled "The Canterbury Tales" Chaucer seems to truly admire some of the pilgrims while displaying disdain and sarcasm towards the others. The pilgrims that he most seems to admire are the Knight, the Oxford Clerk and the Parson. The knight he seems to admire based on his notation of all the campaigns in which the knight has participated in service to just causes. Chaucer makes mention of the knight 's worthiness, wisdom and humility "Though so illustrious, he was very wise And bore himself as meekly as a maid." (67,68 Chaucer). It seems as though Chaucer admires the knights great ability both in warfare and practicing what he preaches. This can be seen in his description of all those he seems to admire in the tale. The Oxford Clerk
There are two types of people in this world, the first ones are, the people who doesn't really like reading books because most of them doesn't have pictures on it, and they find it extremely boring. Then the other type of people, who simply gets lost into their book every time they read, because they just simply love reading. Some of them even say that when they're reading, it is taking them to a different world that only their imagination can create. That is why some people consider their books as their most priced possessions, because of how much it means to them and also some books can be rather pricey. Indeed, books can really be expensive, however, you might be too astonished when you see the following books, because they're considered
The Wife of Bath, with the energy of her vernacular and the voraciousness of her sexual appetite, is one of the most vividly developed characters of 'The Canterbury Tales'. At 856 lines her prologue, or 'preambulacioun' as the Summoner calls it, is the longest of any of the pilgrims, and matches the General Prologue but for a few lines. Evidently Chaucer is infatuated with Alisoun, as he plays satirically with both gender and class issues through the Wife's robust rhetoric. Scholars and students alike have continued this obsession with her, and as a consequence Chaucer's larger than life widow has been subject to centuries of scrutiny. Indeed, she is in the vast minority amongst the Canterbury bound pilgrims; apart from the in-vogue Prioress she is the only female - though she appears in no way daunted by the apparent inequality in numbers. It seems almost a crime to examine masculinity in her prologue and tale, but as I hope to show, there is much to learn both about the Wife and about Chaucer from this male presence.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an important part of his most famed work, The Canterbury Tales. One of the most respected highly analyzed of all of the tales, this particular one is important both for its character development and its prevailing themes. It seamlessly integrates ideas on society at that time with strong literary development. This work stands the test of time both because of its literary qualities and because of what it can teach us about the role of women in late Medieval society.
In this conclusion to the "marriage debate" Chaucer makes his case against courtly precept and social custom, as well as against the religious ideas expresses in medieval times. The case he makes establishes his own highly civilised and indeed Epicurean idea of "gentillesse" in general and in particular, in marriage.
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.
Chaucer's society represents every social class. In doing so, it shows what it takes to actually make a society function. The different people carry different stories to share. These stories carry lessons learned in hopes of sharing them with others so that they may not end up in the same predicaments. After all, that is the main point of sharing stories, isn't it?