Geoffrey Chaucer

The Catholic Church classifies pride, lust, gluttony, envy, greed, laziness, and wrath as the seven deadly sins. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, he analyzes each of these sins and their influence on the lives of pilgrims making their way to Canterbury. Among these pilgrims, the reader would stumble upon a nun and a pardoner. Although the nun and the pardoner share employment in conjunction with the Catholic Church, the sins of which they are guilty differ immensely, as do their…

One of the tales was the Franklin’s tale, told by the Franklin. Chaucer had many different opinions about different characters he wrote about, and he truly did like Franklin. The Franklin was always very optimistic, and positive, even in rough situations. Chaucer wanted more to be like him, because instead of being wealthy, and keeping it to himself, he shared his wealth with others. Chaucer describes him as a “sanguine man, high-colored as benign” (Wiggins 106). He was an aged…

Chaucer himself remarked on the language of a thousand years before him a famous passage from Troylus and Criseyde, (II.22-28) expressed that men long before spoke in so different manner from his contemporaries. Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge Withinne a thousand yer, and wordes tho That hadden prys now wonder nyce and straunge Us thenketh hem, and yet thei spake hem so, And spedde as wel in love as men now do. ‘You know also that there is change in the form of…

not always the case. In the mid to late 14th Century there was an outspoken author who was so brilliant he was able to infiltrate the minds of people on sensitive issues without ever facing the consequences like most people would. His name was Geoffrey Chaucer, and he is the Father of the English language. Without him most of the people in our lives would be speaking a very different language. He was a master of satire, an artist with irony, and in his most…

in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, a Pardoner tells the tale of how three men who are drunk go out to find death. On this journey to find death, they run into an old man who they accuse of death’s spy, and he tells them that they will find death under a tree. Finding this tree, they stumble upon finding lots of money, and in the end, they had killed each other over it. There are literary elements/devices used to make the story more interesting. Geoffrey Chaucer successfully uses…

Tales of The Prioress vs. The Physician Have you ever sat around with a group of friends and just told stories to have a good time? That is basically the foundation of The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 1400s. Chaucer was known as a fantastic writer in his time. He got away with writing crude, violent and obscene tales by writing these tales as he “heard” them. He supposedly got the idea to write the The Canterbury Tales in a storytelling contest that was held during a…

age is a Canterbury pilgrimage; we all pass on, each sustaining one or other of these characters” (Blake), said William Blake, celebrated 18th century English poet. In reference to the father of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer’s most celebrated writing, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer develops a mental model about all of the characters in the literature and describes each character in detail. Three centuries later, Blake’s statement still stands true. Characters from The Canterbury Tales can…

life before me like none other. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a beautifully written fourteenth century novel containing over 20 captivating stories, all recorded from the different perspectives of various and fascinating pilgrims. The individual pilgrims come from a wide variety of social and economic status and backgrounds, both male and female. Females within the fourteenth century were oppressed and typically assigned only to two different…

Geoffrey Chaucer was born 1342 into a middle-class family in London. As a child he attended school and soon after began his career as a page for Countess, which was considered quite a good position and furthered his education. At the age of 17 he was sent abroad to fight for the King of Britain in France where he was captured and held prisoner for one year until the King paid his ransom (Chaucer xi). By 1367, he worked for the King himself, and was held in high regard (xii). The King sent…

In his famous frame narrative, The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer satirizes the thirty pilgrims on their pilgrimage using a story within a story. The thirty pilgrims consist of a cross-section of fourteenth century England, including aristocrats, clergy, middle class, trade class, and the peasants and omitting only royalty and serfs. They congregate at the Tabard Inn, Southwark, directly outside of London, and make their journey to their final destination, Saint Thomas Becket’s shrine in…