Augustine of Canterbury

Among the most memorable tales from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, two of them are also the most religious in their structure. Both the Prioress and her traveling companion and secretary, the Second Nun, are women of faith, so it is only fair and true that both of their stories revolve around the subject of religion. The Prioress who begins with a prayer of praise to the Virgin Mary tells the tale of a young Christian boy who proudly sings Alma Redemptoris Mater. The Second Nun, who…

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s collections of stories, The Canterbury Tales, a group of pilgrims traveling to the shrine of St. Thomas Beckett tell each other stories containing different moral connotations. One such fable, The Pardoner’s Tale, is narrated by a licensed pardoner, who explains the evils of one of his main faults: greed; a vice that has indeed made him wealthy, but has done so at the expense of others. The story, although directed towards greed, is also important as a warning against any…

Due to the virtual absence of women in literary history before 1500, feminist historians and literary critics often turn to Chaucer to satisfy the hunger for valid representations of women. Christened “evir (God wait) all womanis frend” by Chaucerian Gavin Douglas, he appears to be the perfect candidate; however, this urge to fill the gap distorts the way we interpret Chaucer’s female characters. Read as a sign of Chaucer’s empathy with women, or at the very least, his understanding of a female…

Throughout the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses different literary devices to develop tone and attitude about his character’s and their actions. Chaucer specifically satirizes the Miller in the General Prologue, Miller’s Prologue, and the Miller’s Tale to present his opposing views on education and religion by developing the Miller’s appearance, ignorance, and immaturity undesirably. Throughout literature, undesirable features are given to characters authors disdain, dislike, and satirize. In this…

were really meant for? The General Prologue From The Canterbury Tales had a completely different meaning for pilgrims then what comes to mind. The Canterbury Tales is Tales told by Geoffrey Chaucer. They run at least twenty-four stories written in Middle English. The tales were originally published in 1478. Multiple characters play apart in the tales, such as the Pardoner, The Wife of Bath, The Knight, The Miller, and the Narrator. The Canterbury Tales were composed by Chaucer, as to where the…

PROSE STYLE OF Dr.S.RADHAKRISHNAN Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan A good prose-style is both a matter of choice of the words and their arrangement to form a complete meaningful sentence. Dr. Radhakrishnan is one the eminent philosopher of India who was a literate with special knowledge in handling prose style. Dr.S.Radhakrishnan was one of the most influential and recognized Indian thinkers in twentieth century. I wish to explain some important features about prose style just to explain how…

Title In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns the author, Khaled Hosseini, portrays powerful messages through sophisticated linguistic techniques. He takes advantage of a popular rhetorical device called a Christ figure to strengthen his argument and cement his intended lessons into the reader. Christ figures are not always a mirror image of Christ himself, but do symbolize him in certain aspects. Khaled Hosseini conveys a message of hope in the direst situations through Christ figures such as…

Voltaire was famous for being a writer, historian, and a philosopher known for his wittiness, his attacks on the Catholic Church, and his support of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state. Voltaire is partially famous for his wit and he shows that very well in Candide. Voltaire hated optimism and in a very well manner produces a humorously exaggerated imitation of that through Pangloss, the philosophical optimist, and Candide, the student of Pangloss.…

Some of the earliest double entendres are found in the Exeter Book, or Codex exoniensis, at Exeter Cathedral in England. The book was copied around 975 AD. In addition to the various poems and stories found in the book, there are also numerous riddles. The Anglo-Saxons did not reveal the answers to the riddles, but they have been answered by scholars over the years. Some riddles were double-entendres, such as Riddle 25 ("I am a wondrous creature: to women a thing of joyful expectation, to…

The Necklace, written by Guy de Maupassant, contains elements and characters that can be interpreted as an expression of Maupassant’s misogynistic portrayal of women. However, there also exist contrasting events and features present in The Necklace that serve to lessen the extent of the misogyny portrayed by Maupassant. This essay will explore a few of these elements, and will discuss the extent of the misogyny shown through Maupassant’s Madame Loisel. Through Madame Loisel’s obsession with…