What three groups would you add to the journey? Geoffrey Chaucer took three types on his journey to Canterbury. They were the religious group, the upper class, and the middle working class. Chaucer wrote his tales in Middle English around the 1350’s. Chaucer had many people from each group go. He mostly wrote in a satiric tone. Satire is another word for sarcasm or irony. Irony is saying one thing while meaning another. He used both juvenilia and horashian. Juvenilia is harsh sarcasm. An example would be the friar. Horashian is soft or gentle sarcasm. The main nun would be a great example of this. If I were to take a pilgrimage I would take three groups, musicians, athlete, and comedians.…
A foil is a character that contrasts with another character in order to highlight particular qualities of the other character. Chaucer uses a foil for numerous characters in The Canterbury Tales. Although a foil is mainly used to show important qualities in the protagonist of the story, Chaucer employs it to both bring his characters together and set them apart. Two characters that Chaucer compares and contrasts using this technique are the Knight and the Sea Captain, or Skipper. He depicts them as similar because of their occupations, but ultimately proves them to be two completely different people when he describes their behavior.…
Both the “Miller’s Tale” and the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” in the Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, can be categorized as comedy. As defined in the Oxford dictionary, comedy is a form of professional entertainment consisting of jokes and sketches, intended to make an audience laugh. However, it may be confusing for some audiences when they find another definition of the word comedy. Also as defined by the Oxford dictionary, comedy is a category of theater characterized by its humorous or satirical tone and its depiction of amusing people or incidents, in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. The first definition is broad and fails to characterize the complexity of the comedy found in the Canterbury Tales. The second…
The values put forth by Henry David Thoreau in his essay "Walking" are shown in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and in particular The Oxford Cleric's tale. The idea that only wildness is attractive to readers and is evident in the clerics tale because it has things as far away from dull as possible happening. Love, trust, deception, and a happy ending all contribute to an anything but dull tale which in fact proves Thoreau's ideal. In particular the strained relationship between the two main characters causes a wildness to occur and grab the reader in a way that dull or plainness simply can't.…
Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” celebrates and satires humanity, especially the “everyman”, in his story he included to characters in particular, one representing the best of humanity and the other illustrating the worst. Chaucer practically idolizes the Knight, who represents everything us humans aspire to be. “He was of sovereign value in all eyes. And though so much distinguished, he was wise and in his bearing modest as a maid. He never yet a boorish thing had said in all his life to any, come what might; he was a true, perfect gentle-knight.” (Chaucer 69-74) Chaucer says that though the knight had been through so many brave and amazing situations, from Alexandria to Prussia, fought against the Turks, and in Granada, he had never once been over confident; he remained as modest as one could be. The Knight symbolizes everything good in a human, Chaucer does not satire him at all; however, it is the complete opposite with the Pardoner. The Pardoner symbolizes the lowest a man could get, he cheats, he steals,…
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales became one of the first ever works that began to approach the standards of modern literature. It was probably one of the first books to offer the readers entertainment, and not just another set of boring morals. However, the morals, cleverly disguised, are present in almost every story. Besides, the book offers the descriptions of the most common aspects of the human nature. The books points out both the good and the bad qualities of the people, however, the most obvious descriptions are those of the sinful flaws of humans, such as greed and lust.…
Medieval England literature all seem to follow a basic set of ideas. Although many of the plays and tales we have read so far are different in plotlines, they all possess a certain set of ideas and focus on certain concepts. In each piece of literature, not only is God mentioned, but religion almost always is a main issue in the plot. Along with holiness and religion, virtues and chivalry are also common in this type of literature, whether it be how the characters have good virtues or the characters’ lack of them.…
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, differences between characters and connections between the tales themselves produce humour and irony. One of the best examples of irony and humour between figures’ in the Canterbury Tales is in the parallels that exist between “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Knight’s Tale.” The Miller tells the audience he will “requite” “The Knight’s Tale” (Chaucer 3119). The Miller requites the Knight not only in the form of his tale but also in the similarities that exist between the two tales. The Miller seems to attempt to show the Knight a more realistic version of the Knight’s tale of an epic romance. Through examining both similarities and differences between the two tales, one can show “The Miller’s Tale” as a social commentary against “The Knight’s Tale” of courtly love.…
At first, The Canterbury Tales characters do seem odd; however, like any good story plot you have your heroes and villains, good guys and bad guys, or protagonists and antagonists. The only different with this story is the names, truthfully. The stereotypes still exist – they just don’t disappear – take for instance The Pardoner. People like the Pardoner still have a very prominent place in society, although they appear in various forms – bankers, crooks, hustlers, etc. – the reality is they still exist. People every day are scammed by unsuspecting criminals just looking for money because they’re driven by greed, I.e., Bernie Madoff, Jordan Belfort, Jeff Skilling, and many more; all of which were trusted by someone along the way – and that’s…
In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, many characters go on a religious pilgrimage to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. On the way to Canterbury, each person on the journey tells a tale. Whoever tells the best story, gets rewarded a lavish free meal. The pilgrimage includes people from the nobility, clergy, and commoner class. For each class, Chaucer develops many different character types that were representative of the society of the time. With a broad spectrum of people and action, The Canterbury tales consists of many different ideas such as social satire, courtly love/ chivalry,morality, and corruption and deceit. One of the most important ideas of the story is that Chaucer puts forward a criteria that…
There are over a billion people in this world, an over 50% of them are women. In the current world, they're growing to create an impact in the world. It makes one wonder how they struggled to become what they are today. Many works of literature portray women in two types, those fit and unfit for society. While the two categories may have very different definitions to different perspectives, there isn't a doubt that this has helped society in many ways. One work on literature, which contains both categories, is the The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The novel describes women who may be shunned by society because of their boldness, while others show women who can get away with anything just because of their status. While the female gender is a difficult subject to tackle, women decide for themselves if they want to please society or not.…
Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, felt that the Church's turmoil experienced during the fourteenth century contributed to the a declining trust of clergy and left the people spiritually devastated. The repeated epidemics that the European Church experienced weakened the church by highlighting the clergy's inability to face adversity. The clergy's inability to provide relief for the people during a period of suffering did not turn people away from the church, but it did cause the people to question the value of the Church's traditional practices. People looked for ways to gain greater control over their own spiritual destines and altered their perception of the clergy, who were too weak to bring the people complete salvation. (Bisson51-52) "The times are out of joint, the light of faith grows dim; the clergy are mostly ignorant, quarrelsome, idle, and unchaste, and the prelates do not correct them because they themselves are no better." (Coulton 296) In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer makes us highly aware of the clergy's obvious and hidden intensions. Chaucer shows his awareness of the shortcomings of the Church in his portrayal of those who exercise spiritual authority during the pilgrimage. (Bisson 51-52)…
For many years, satire – “a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule” – has been a tool used by authors to bring attention to a specific topic. One of the most famous satires is Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Within these tales is the “Pardoner’s Tale,” which is a satirical and allegorical poem mocking the corruption of the Catholic Church.…
Satire is defined as the use of humor, exaggeration, or irony to describe someone. In “The Canterbury Tales” written by Geoffrey Chaucer, satire is used often. CHaucer uses satire to describe a Prioress (nun), a Cook, and a Friar. Compared to these people today, the features Chaucer gives them do not match up.…
Irony is the general name given to literary techniques that involve surprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions. Two stories from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales that serve as excellent demonstrations of irony are "The Pardoners Tale" and "The Nun's Priest's Tale." Although these two stories are very different, they both use irony to teach a lesson.…