Happiness In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Human nature dictates that a person’s ultimate goal is to achieve happiness. Ever since the dawn of moral philosophy, brilliant minds have struggled with the meaning of “good” or “bad”. In the late 1200s, not long before Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales take place, St. Thomas Aquinas postulated two definitions of “good”. On one hand, he said, a good action is one which propels us towards happiness. However, from his religious standpoint, Aquinas considered that one may never achieve final happiness on Earth, instead, good deeds could send a soul to Heaven (McInerny, 1997). Chaucer establishes a sense of humanity in The Canterbury Tales because he makes his characters sinful in their pursuit of happiness. Since Chaucer is making a very …show more content…
Chaucer continues to ensure his character traits are realistic; instead of making January completely amoral, Chaucer makes his choice of sinful happiness, in lieu of metaphysical bliss, a conscious and difficult one. January’s conclusion is that he “shall be leading such a happy life,” not that he will be miserable in the marriage. Thus, Chaucer defends a causal relationship between lust and the happiness gained from this marriage, undermining the Church’s view that sinning cannot lead to …show more content…
He explains, f“In all that was befitting to a knight, / His house and all his finery and treasure / Were fashioned to his rank as are a king’s” (377). January is overly proud of his rank as a knight. In Christian knighthood, “chivalry was regarded as a universal order” (Tuchman, 1978). When Chaucer says that January chooses “finery and treasure” to accentuate his rank as a knight, he suggests that January is a knight for the glory, not for the religious and moral service. Combining both of these aspects, glorious pride rather than chivalry parallels January’s choice to be greedily happy on Earth, while sacrificing the religious benefits that may have granted him incorporeal