Geoffrey of Monmouth

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories that the pilgrim travelers wrote on their journey to the Canterbury Cathedral in London, England. This collection was written by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1342-1400. The group of pilgrims are headed to London in order to give their respect to Bishop Thomas Beckett who has been murdered. There are 46 members on the trip, but only some are able to capture their stories. The captain of the voyage suggests that every one on the trip should tell two…

Like father like son, or at least that is how the saying goes, but for the father and son duo described in the “Prologue” of Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, this saying could not be any further from the truth. With one having very high moral values and the other caring more about the ladies than life, it should be easy to see just how opposite father and son really can be. In fact, the Knight and his son, the Squire, are not only exact opposites in their actions, but they are even more…

Mankind has nearly always succumbed to the unethical influences of greed. The Pardoner states this idea when he says “Love of money is the root of all evil.” The irony in the story is derived from the fact the Pardoner does not follow his own teachings, because he sells indulgences and fake relics to increase his personal wealth. One element of the Pardoner, which fuels the irony of his tale, is the attitude he has for his living. He recognizes his own hypocrisy when he states “I preach…

Critique of Chaucer’s Attack on Church Hypocrisy (An Understanding of Chaucer’s Attack on Church Hypocrisy) Within Geoffrey Chaucer’s stories of, “Canterbury Tales,” he clearly explicates the negativity brought about by the hypocrisy of the church. While he proves, distinctly, that he is not against the church itself, he does show, on many occasions, how disgusted and furious he is about the greed and selfishness of the church. Before going into details about the story of the pardoner, the…

There are countless ways to tell a single story. The Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales has been heavily debated for its supposed genre: is the prologue a sermon or an autobiography, an exemplum, or perhaps something else? Analyzing the prologue leads to the most clear choice being a confession. Though it certainly borrows from other styles of writing, the Wife of Bath’s prologue is primarily a confession from the Wife. “People who study medieval stuff generally recognize the…

The Medieval Ages, a period of time consumed by the established feudal system, was also an era of synthetic moral character among certain demographics. In the British classic, The Canterbury Tales, the author satirizes the lack of authenticity of certain peoples in his society. In order to share his views on the corruption of society, Chaucer creates characters that highlight the issues of different groups, including nobility and the church. Traditionally, the rich and powerful in a medieval…

(introductory paragraph) No one quite knows what month, day, or even the exact year Chaucer was born, though it is quite probable he was born somewhere around 1340, likely in the early 1400’s. It is not a for sure thing, but evidence leads people to believe he was born in his parents house on Thames Street in London, England. He had no brothers or sisters; he was an only child. He was born into a bourgeois family. A bourgeois family is called middle class here and Victorian in England.…

live two different lifestyles. When in the public eye, they portray themselves as someone that would appeal to the people. Behind closed doors, however, they are someone completely different. This is especially evident in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer uses ironic characteristics of the Friar and Merchant from “The Prologue” and the Knight from “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” to criticize the deceptive nature of the people during The Middle Ages. The author uses irony through the…

In the prologue of The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, the Friar is the most corrupt pilgrim among all of the travelers. The travelers are all members of the English society. The narrator of the prologue, Chaucer, along with the other travelers are on a pilgrimage to the shrine at Canterbury. While on this pilgrimage each traveler is to tell two stories going and two stories coming back, to keep everyone entertained. Before the travelers began telling their stories, the narrator…

The pardoner is a man with great knowledge of the church and a love for god. However how people looked at him it does not change the fact that the pardoner is an outcast. In brief the pardoner sells relics that are fake so that people touch to get rid of sins. The tale that the pardoner tells is about three men first walking past by their dead good friend that got killed but death. Thereafter the three men go on a quest to find death. In the Pardoner’s Tale, Chaucer uses personification by…