Middle English

shift from scholarly reading to a more universal style of tales written in Middle English, introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer, a timelessly renowned poet. The Canterbury Tales, considered the most important literary piece of the Medieval period written in 1392 by Chaucer, is considered his greatest achievement although the work is fragmented. The Tales begins in Chaucer’s day, the fourteenth century, in a quintessential English town named Southwark. Inside this town is a pub named the Tabard Inn,…

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…

Geoffrey Chaucer, who was born into the middle class and considered to be the greatest English poet of his lifetime. He spoke many languages including French and Italian. Chaucer was part of the government, so money was not an issue for him. Society had three levels at this time: clergy, nobles, and traders or general labor workers. The merchants and tradesmen were rising and becoming higher than lower class. These segments of society are breaking down because the middle classes are emerging…

called the church out through his stories and his description of those that represented the church. As it was said by Boece, “Considered a cultural touchstone, if not the very wellspring of literature in the English language, Chaucer’s tales gather twenty-nine archetypes of late-medieval English society and present them with insight and humor.”…

22-26 a hotel scenery is described to be prone to fellowship between the occupants. The narrator explains how they observed and described each one of the occupants. I am curious that the narrator might be a traveler or storyteller themselves. In the Middle ages oral storytelling was very common and popular among common folk, however since this is a written text, the poems might simply be profiles of each character. I believe that the introduction is a back story, and the actual text…

fall in love in The Canterbury Tales. It was written in the year of 1400, which was the most well-known piece of writing in medieval English that Chaucer wrote (Nikolopoulos). The Canterbury Tales begin with the general prologue with the arrival of spring, where the narrator describes the blooming of flowers and the birds singing. During this season of the year, English pilgrims would set off on their journey to the holy shrines. On their voyage, all the travelers hold a storytelling contest to…

Human personality naturally changes over time. Sometimes it is sudden but more often it is a gradual change. Character development is practically a must have of good fictional narrative writing. It usually happens gradually as it does in nature to make the writing realistic but Roald Dahl uses striking changes in character personality to create an incredibly intriguing character. Mary Maloney in the short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl experiences major, instantaneous…

Author Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales toward the end of the medieval period. Regarded as the first true English poetic masterwork, The Canterbury Tales describes twenty-nine pilgrims on a journey to Canterbury Cathedral to see the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. Chaucer describes many fictional characters from the different social classes in the Middle Ages; in particular, he includes many figures affiliated with the Church such as the Friar and the Summoner. These two characters share…

The History of English and Etymology of Words Used in Famous Literary Works English, commonly referred to as the language of opportunity, is widely regarded to be a system of communication characterized by potential for unity. A language to ease the conversation of trade, to draft scripts of Hollywood movies, to write recipes in, and more or less, a language that belongs to the people. However, before English officially became accessible to anyone who wished to employ it, English “belong[ed] to…

The Sami, who live in the northern tips of Scandinavia and Russia, have as many as 1000 words for reindeer. The english language, however, has far less. This stark difference is due to the fact that languages are shaped by the people who use them daily. People who live in colder climates like northern Russia see reindeer more often and have more of a use for them , while someone in New York may have never seen them in their entire lives. Therefore, they would need more words to describe…