Geoffrey of Monmouth

The Canterbury Tales is a poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer published in 1478. The poem consist of multiple tales put into one actual story. Chaucer begins with an extensive prologue giving a comprehensive description of each character, then explains why the characters are brought together. The pilgrims are brought together to go visit Saint Thomas Becket in the Canterbury Cathedral. After that the host has each character tell a tale to make time go faster. All of the characters decide to tell…

English Quarter 1 Paper Geoffrey Chaucer challenged the social norms of his time through the “Wife of Bath's Tale”, where he cleverly expressed his opinions on women and power. In his tale, he challenged the norms through the situations where he made women sovereign over men. This idea was prevalent when the knight was put before women who would judge his crime, when the old hag would give him the answer in return for his marriage, and ultimately when the knight allowed the old hag to choose…

In the book The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer includes a varied group of people that go on the journey to Canterbury. He includes, in Nevill Coghill’s words, “a concise portrait of an entire nation, high and low, old and young, learned and ignorant, rogue and righteous. . .” Many of the characters in Chaucer’s book can be described exactly by these words, as there are many different personalities, ages, and classes on the journey to Canterbury. To begin, an example of a nation of high and…

The Miller In Middle English times there were certain levels of class. Back then, it was well-known that the highest level of chivalry and character lived within the knights. No one was supposed to ever talk over or try to outdo a knight because the men back then had to know where they were in the hierarchy. Carpenters, millers, even blacksmiths were all considered peasants, so when the Miller began his tale by interrupting the Knight it already shows the character of the Miller. The…

people who want to drastically change the way the human system has been set up. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 50’s and 60’s with civil rights; or Christ himself about 2000 years ago, they wanted to change the way we a human's looked at the world. Geoffrey Chaucer, commonly referred to as the “Father of English Literature” because he was the first poet to write in vernacular English instead of Anglo-Saxton or Latin. He is also referred to as iconoclastic for the ways he attacks, most of 1300…

While you would be hard pressed to deny/ignore the heavily present humor in the Millers Tale, which earns it the title of a fabliau, it is also critical to consider the ways in which Chaucer contradicts these moments with instances of seriousness. One thing the Miller’s Tale makes absolutely clear is that it’s difficult to discern between what is light-hearted and fun compared to what is meaningful and moral telling. However, identifying that this contradiction exists is only the beginning.…

In H.S. Bennett’s Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century, Bennett reveals that Chaucer is a close observer to detail. Bennett proposes, “No detail was too small for him to observe, and from it he could frequently draw, or suggest, conclusions which would have escaped many.” Bennett’s assertion is proved in Chaucer’s Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, as it is evident that Chaucer carefully and astutely describes characters through their appearances and behaviors. Although Chaucer describes a…

The Pardoner is a man that sells forgiveness. The Cook is a dirty man who makes good tasting food. The Pardoner is more morally corrupt than the Cook. The Pardoner is greedy, untrustworthy, and manipulative. The Cook is none of these. The Pardoner is greedy, you can tell by the way he can take money from people who need it more than he does. He takes money from poor women with starving children without batting an eye. He convinces them that by giving him money they will be forgiven of their sins…

Many people throughout history people have tried to act one way but think and do another thing. This is called hypocrisy. It is when people say or act one way but behind others back, they say and do other things. For example, Chaucer wrote Canterbury tales based on their hypocrisy on the church and the patriarch. He talks about the church members and how they act and sau other things. However, he also has a character that is the real deal, he is a true christian with a true christian heart who…

The upper class started coming down and the lower class started moving up. When they combined they made the middle class.Chaucer is trying to show how the church is corrupt with just saying it and paying the consequences. He tells what people need to know without saying the name of the people that are corrupt this is how he tells that the church and how certain people are looking to help themselves and nobody else. He states that there are people who are good and but they are people us like us…