In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale,” the Pardoner serves as a moral exemplum in that his drunken and greedy habits highlight an opposite path of righteousness. The Pardoner embraces his love of wealth and alcohol however, and emerges as an exemplum of transparency in addition to sin. The Pardoner is in fact a skilled preacher … Read more
The Medieval societies fascination with dreams and their meanings lead to a direct result of authors employing dream visions as allegoric literary tactics, which in turn became a genre that was significantly unique to the Medieval period. Dream visions were favored by Medieval poets, such as French poet Guillaume de Lorris, who became influential on … Read more
Chaucer describes the Merchant as a well-dressed, yet exotic businessman, a successful financial expert, and a very unhappy husband. Most people would agree that there is no textual evidence to support that the Merchant is a cuckold or that January, the main character in the tale is a mirror of his own character. However, both … Read more
A person can almost wholly learn the history of the world though literature that has been written. This is because the people and times have such a great influence on the writers and their work. Authors did not simply grab ideas from the sky. These ideas came from their mind; they wrote about what they … Read more
Canterbury Tales as a whole was very interesting. It has introduced us to a way of life that we never knew existed. It also introduced us to a type of crude humor that we have never been exposed to. It has shown us a true side of life during the Middle Ages. We have learned … Read more
In researching Geoffrey Chaucer’s collection of stories named The Canterbury Tales, an interesting illustration of the Medieval Church becomes evident. A crooked society exists within the corrupt, medieval church community. Not all of the clergy’s intentions were corrupt, but as Chaucer, through his character the Pardoner,so well put it,’Radix malorum est cupiditas’;, ( Love of … Read more
The Canterbury Tales is written in the form of a frame narrative. A short prologue introduces each tale, the tale is then told and we then return to the frame. Such a framing device requires the reader to continuously move between the frame and the embedded narratives and this leads to our response being anticipated … Read more
Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in approximately 1385, is a collection of twenty-four stories ostensibly told by various people who are going on a religious pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral from London, England. Prior to the actual tales, however, Chaucer offers the reader a glimpse of fourteenth century life by way of what he refers to … Read more
Sexual relations between men and woman have created issues of life and death from the beginning of time. In most classic Western beliefs it began when Eve with the help of the Devil seduced Adam thus leading the downfall of humanity into an abyss of sin and hopelessness. This issue arises in all literature from … Read more
There are several types of foolishness being described in the Pardoner’s Tale itself. He describes gluttony in general, then specifically wine. He talks of gambling, taking bets and the like, and of swearing. The exemplum of his sermon describes three fools who go foolishly seeking death, then find it in a large amount of gold. … Read more
Geoffrey Chaucer’s world was the Europe of the fourteenth century. It was not rich or poor, happy or sad. Rather, it was the intermingling of these, a mixture of splendor and poverty , displaying both worldly desire and spiritual purity. Chaucer’s literary works broke away from conformity and set the stage for the beginning of … Read more