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¶ … Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (make read Wife Bath's Tale, Prologue), respond: This week,'ve read Prologue Canterbury Tales. From 've read (including Prologue), create a profile character.
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Character profiles
Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales chronicles the procession of a series of pilgrims to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. The pilgrims that make up the party of travelers span from the highest classes of the aristocracy and priesthood to lower-class members of common trades. One example of a high-born pilgrim is that of the Knight. The Knight tells a tale of two cousins warring for a beautiful woman's hand; at the end of the tale, as one of the cousins dies fighting for her love, he tells her to marry the other man. The tale reinforces the values of courtly love.
In contrast, the bawdy Miller's tale satirizes the notion of perfect, transcendent...
While the Knight is noble and full of high ideals, the Miller is earthy and enjoys telling dirty stories. As in the Knight's tale, two men are warring over a woman's hand. Alisoun, the heroine, is married to a much older man, a carpenter named John. Alisoun does not love John. She has an affair with the lodger boarding at her home, a scholar of divinity named Nicholas. When Alisoun and Nicholas play a nasty trick on one of her other suitors, the parish clerk Absolon, the story ends with Absolon branding Nicholas on the bottom with a pair of hot pokers. The Miller is a lower-class character who enjoys drinking, and this is reflected in his story. His…
The Bible, he argued, cites the creation of Eve for Adam as proof that a wife is man's support, as well as many other examples of humble and devoted wives. The knight told his brother that he desired a young wife, who was no older than thirty, for she would be more pliable. Placebo cautioned that it takes great courage for an older man to marry a young woman (Classic
http://find.galegroup.com/gps/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=IPS&docId=A21240794&source=gale&srcprod=ITOF&userGroupName=va0035_004&version=1.0 Works Cited Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Trans. Neville Coghill. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.
Thomas's gift turns out to be a giant fart, which Chaucer describes using richly comedic imagery: "Ther nys no capul, drawynge in a cart, / That myghte have lete a fart of swich a soun," ("Summoner's Tale," lines 486-487). The humor continues to enliven the Summoner's tale; toward the end the characters seriously debate how to divide up a fart. Chaucer's use of comedy and farcical imagery parallels his mockery
Of course a Queen would expect to be in charge, but the story serves to support the Wife's rather bad behavior in four of her five marriages. She ends her story by suggesting that every woman should have a young and attractive husband who has the sense to obey his wife. The views of the Wife of Bath must have been startling or even shocking for its day. Relations between
Knights in the Canterbury Tales, The Knight's Tale, And The Miller's Tale The narrator in the Prologue of "The Canterbury Tales" paints a noble view of the Knight. For instance, we are told that the knight is a distinguished man who practiced "chivalry,/Truth, honour, generousness and courtesy" (20). We are also told he is wise, and he fought in "fifteen mortal battles" across the world. (21) While the narrator may have an
Chaucer's "Retraction" and Its Meaning within the Context of the Canterbury Tales The "Retraction," a fragment that follows the last of the Tales in Chaucer's masterpiece, has attracted much critical attention, as students of Chaucer attempt to divine whether it implies a renunciation on the author's part of his work, or is intended ironically. Benson comments that "the authenticity of the Retraction has been challenged" (Benson, 2000), and certainly it is possible