Geoffrey Wolff

Life during the medieval period was either great or very difficult. This depended on a person's family history and their classification. Ruling, clergy, middle, and peasant were the four main types of classifications during the medieval times. People in the ruling and the clergy class usually had the best of everything, so their lives were great. Life was very difficult for the middle- class people and the peasants. Most of them did not have much at all. Many peasants would go days without…

Around 1310, Roman de Fauvel, attributed to Gervais de Bus, began circulating through Europe. This extended medieval poem split into two books is full of symbolism and mockery of higher institutions and the government. This story includes a visual satire that is accompanied by beautiful, carefully chosen, polyphonic music. Roman de Fauvel is basically a symbol of everything wrong with France in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The two books can be described as underlyingly…

King Arthur overcomes many struggles throughout the two novels, “ The Sword in the Stone” and “ The Queen of Air and Darkness” by T.H. White. These struggles help him to mature throughout the two novels, yet at some points in the novel it is clear that Arthur struggles to completely mature. King Arthur learns a lot about his power, what it means to have his authority and the importance of morality, especially when in a position of power. On the other hand, he knowingly broke the unwritten rules…

Honesty is more than telling the truth, it means having integrity. The pilgrim who shows these traits the most is the Knight. The Knight "followed chivalry/Truth, honor, generousness, and courtesy"(Lines 45-46). He does great things for his kingdom and the people in it. He even remains humble in spite of those achievements. Similarly to the Knight, the Parson is a respectable person. "He [is] an honest worker, good and true/Living in peace and perfect charity"(Lines 142-143). The Parson helps…

Chaucer "Of small coral about hir arm she bar a pair of bedes gauded all with greene, an theron heeng a brooch of gold ful sheene, n which ther was a writen crowned a, and after, amor vincit omnia" From what I've read and learnt in class loosely trasnlates to "Made out of coral beads all colored green, And from it hung a brooch of golden sheen On which there was an A crowned with a wreath, With Amor vincit omnia beneath." To first understand this quote we must know what genre it is to…

The pilgrims, or characters of The Canterbury Tales are relatable to the present society in numerous ways. Many of them show traits that are similar to today’s world like greed, pride, envy, and gluttony. The Canterbury Tales consist of a prologue defining all of the pilgrims and individual stories that the pilgrims tell. Each character has his or her own unique personality that is comparable to some well-known personalities. In The Canterbury Tales prologue, there are several characters that…

The Knight and The Miller In the Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, there are 29 pilgrims headed to Canterbury from London. Harry Bailey, the host of the pilgrimage, presents a competition that each pilgrim tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and back to London and whoever shares the best story will be honored with a feast paid for by the other pilgrims. All of the pilgrims agree to do the challenge and they start the journey. The pilgrims each come from a specific class of society…

Chaucer, the narrator, opens the General Prologue with a describing the flourishing plants, and the chirping birds of April. Around this time of year people begin go on a pilgrimage to visit shrines and religious monuments in distant holy lands, but the majority during this time choose to travel to Canterbury. Canterbury is the site of Canterbury Cathedral where the relics of Saint Thomas Becket are stored. Pilgrims journey there to thank the martyr for helping them in their time of need.…

This article analyzes the subconscious desires within the Wife of Bath and the Clerk in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales by comparing and contrasting the characters' apparent goals with the consequences of their tales' endings. At first glance, The motivations of these characters seems clear; the wife tells a tale that demonstrates woman's desire of mastery over the husband and the Clerk wants to refute her point by offering an example of a perfectly submissive wife. However, due to their…

“Confessions of a Pilgrim Shopaholic” Analysis Paul Rudnick’s humorous narrative Confessions of a Pilgrim Shopaholic which was published in March 16, 2009, lampoons American consumerism by satirizing the Puritan beliefs in lavish lifestyle and exorcism, implying that consumerism is inevitable in any society. Hyperbole is used throughout the article as a prime strategy of satire. For instance, the fact that Rebecca, the wife of Mister Harnsill, travelled to Boston only to “purchase a thimbleful…