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By association, he is implying that he is a man of action rather than words, which is a logical extension of his occupation as Knight. One might, however, question, why he focuses his attention on the comfort of his companions rather than simply stating that he is not inclined to make his tale too long for his own reasons. Indeed, he claims that he "would also not hinder any of this company." This casts doubt on the Knight's honesty, since it is highly unlikely that his reasons for keeping the details he mentions out of his tale are purely unselfish. It could be that he uses these statements to conceal what the company might perceive as a flaw in his narrative, in that it somewhat lacks imagination.
When considering the details of what the Knight claims not to have time for, it becomes clear that such tales would be filled with action (Theseus and his knightly valor and the various battles), beauty (the wedding-feast), and...
These events would require strong powers of description. By in fact mentioning these events without describing them, the Knight creates the idea that he does have powers of description, but not the time to use them. This is ironic in the light of the fact that the rest of the story is quite long.
In conclusion, it appears that the Knight, like many others in the company, has a somewhat high opinion of himself, his strength, the difficulty of his work, and the way in which others see him. For this reason, he uses what devices he has at his disposal to make his tale as interesting as he can without in fact highlighting his own flaws. Instead, he hides his fundamental flaws under the use of narrative devices in order to impress his hearers. When this fundamental dishonesty is revealed, the Knight becomes far less revered in the mind of the reader than the case might otherwise have been.
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.
Chaucer's Wife Of Bath Prologue And Tale: Geoffrey Chaucer's Wife of Bath starts with the Prologue to her tale through developing herself as an authority on marriage because of the extended individual experience with the institution. From her initial marriage when she was 12 years old, she has had five husbands and received criticisms from several people because of these numerous marriages. The criticisms are mainly based on that fact that
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 Both Shakespeare's Hamlet and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales do offer universal truths. As Volve states about Chaucer's work in particular: "The tale is firmly anchored in one specific period of history…but it seeks as well to represent other periods and other lives," (300-301). Likewise, Shakespeare's plays like Hamlet have endured precisely because there are few cultural, geographic, or temporal barriers that would prevent universal understanding and interpretation. Texts like these
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
311). In contrast to bolstering the position of any specific class of society, in the Canterbury Tales Chaucer's method of story telling refuses to take sides: a tale by a knight is deflated by that of a miller, and the miller's wit is undercut by his drunkenness. While many critics have commented upon the ironic contrast between the Chaucerian teller of the tales and their content, such as the greedy Pardoner