Geoffrey Robertson

One of the most influential pieces of literature in history is The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales takes place in medieval England, a time full of religious pilgrimages and exploration. The Canterbury Tales is a revolutionary piece of literature, known for its satire and truthfulness. Chaucer begins the tale with a prologue that individually describes diverse characters. Chaucer created these characters to be authentic; they are boastful, mean spirited, reckless, and…

First of all we have to think of the Canterbury Tales in a certain context, these stories are being told in the passage of a Pilgrimage to Canterbury. We see that these characters all live in the same world interacting with one another, but they all have different points of view in several topics. “The pilgrims are represented as affected by a variety of destructive and restorative kinds of love. Their characters and movement can be fully described only as mixtures of the loves that drive and…

The Importance of Friendship Friendship is, by definition, a relationship between two friends. Some believe that friendships are a necessity for human life. Joseph Conrad was a man who grew up not having many friends. As a young child he had missed school quite a bit from illnesses (Kathleen Wilson 200). This made it hard to have close relationships with other children. He did however gain a love for literature and the sea from his father at a young age (www.notablebiographies.com). This is…

Great writers create great stories. In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer writes about the different classes of pilgrims. He has a narrator, Harry Bailey, who speaks highly of the knight but does not care about the Summoner. Bailey tells all the pilgrims that each will have the opportunity to tell a story of which they desire and whoever has the best story will get a dinner paid by the pilgrims. Throughout the stories, women are described as men’s pleasure. Chaucer uses characterization and…

In the Odyssey, Odysseus was a very noble man. One of the many things he struggled with was being humble. Odysseus must grasp humility to return back home. Multiple times the gods tried to teach Odysseus to be humble along his journey. Some examples of times the gods tried to teach Odysseus to be humble was when he tried to escape the Cyclops cave, when his men ate the cows of the sun god, and when Penelope had to keep suitors back. The gods attempted to teach Odysseus to be humble when…

Chaucer is no stranger to writing parodies of his own stories in The Canterbury Tales, as seen in the Reeve’s Tale working off of and following immediately after The Miller’s Tale. Similarly, The Friar’s Tale closely parallels and also follows right after The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Chaucer aligns these two tales to enforce the point that they should not be interpreted separately, but rather they should be accepted as an entire unit. And by implementing textual similarities, Chaucer blurs the lines…

Pedro Paramo was written in 1955 in Mexico, a deeply Catholic country. The influence of this Catholicism, along with Juan Rulfo’s disillusionment with the politics of the church, is evident throughout his novella. Through Pedro Paramo, Juan Rulfo criticises the opportunistic nature of the church, portraying the greed of the church elites and their willingness to sell salvation to cater to their own desires while also portraying the elites as an extension of God, thus implicating Him in their…

About the author Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) was an English poet, diplomat and politician. His family was well- to-do and he received a good education. Wotton was appointed ambassador to the court of Venice and later the provost of Eton College. He served as Member of Parliament in 1614 and 1625. He was knighted by James VI. His love for classical architecture developed during his stay in Venice. His book ‘The Elements of Architecture’ sought to familiarize the English man with…

Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English literature and the author of The Canterbury Tales, uses two contradicting characters to help satirize the corruption within the Catholic Church. The Canterbury Tales is about thirty pilgrims who are traveling to the shrine in Canterbury for vacation or religious reasons. Chancer’s intention is for each pilgrim to tell a total of four tales. Sadly, Chaucer dies before completing the story. The purpose of The Canterbury Tales is to satirize the corruption…

blackening church appals". By stating these, he refers to the rotten government and corrupt institutions like the church which allow child labor, prostitution, and bloody wars. In the last line, when he says "And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse." he puts his blame on the legal marriage of his day which restricts the romantic love. On the other hand, Wordsworth has an optimistic and positive view of London. Because he has lived in a countryside area and has described the natural beauty…