Knight's Tale by Chaucer the

¶ … Knight's Tale by Chaucer The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer signifies a great turning point in the history of literature. As such, its value to readers of Chaucer's time was entertainment on a level that related to every level of society. As such, Chaucer included many story tellers in his work, including those from all classes and backgrounds. The clergy, for example, view themselves as somewhat "better" than others, although many of their tales reveal just the opposite.

As such, many of the tales reveal more about their narrators than the latter may have intended. One of the tales in Chaucer's work is the Knight's Tale, where an analysis of lines 875-885 could reveal certain things about the night, such as that he either tries to give an impression of the difficulty of his own work, is a man of action rather than words, or does not have enough imagination to provide enough details of the events he mentions.

One possibility of the Knight's claim that there is no time to tell various elements of his tale is that he wishes to give the rest of the company the impression that he is very busy and works very hard. To metaphorize this, he uses the lines "God knows, I have a large field to plough, and my oxen are weak." The Knight implies here that he has more than his share of the burden, with even those meant to help him not fully equipped for the task.

He ven calls God as witness. This might be to appeal to the clergy within the company. This, along with the fact that he claims to have such a very large field to plow, gives the impression that the Knight is not entirely honest, which places him in good company, since few of the others have shown themselves to be honest.

After the introduction to his tale, the Knight interrupts himself to claim that the tales he is omitting would be "too long to hear," appearing to indicate that he does not want to bother his companions with such details. 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 the violence of nature (the tempest). These events would require strong powers of description.

By in fact mentioning these events without describing them, the Knight creates the idea.