Free Essays on Chaucer to Get Inspired & Learn by Example

English

What do we know about good and evil? Adults teach children whether one is good or bad, the knowledge of dichotomy of Good and Evil. This knowledge may be presented in different way. The dichotomy cannot be always consistent, because what people used to consider bad a century ago, now is taken for granted and is not prohibited. Geoffrey Chaucer in his poem “The Canterbury Tales” created an overall picture of this idea of Good and Evil. Different people from various estates tell their stories: it may be the Clergyman who preaches sermons about the Good from the viewpoint Continue reading...

Dante and Chaucer wrote works of art, which can be considered as “journey” literature, where the metaphor lies on the life, physical and spiritual journeys that the characters in the poems embark on.
Dante and Chaucer both showcased real people in their works, but they were successful in hiding their identities and fictionalizing their characters to save them from the social or religious repercussions that so inflicted people those days. For example, Dante mentioned past and present sinners in his Hell, while Chaucer parodied the shallowness of virtue and hypocrisy of people who were on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Continue reading...

The Wife of Bath is one of the most vividly sketched characters in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The wife of Bath is a lustful, middle-aged woman. She has married several times and has out-lived all her husband’s. She is planning to marry once again as soon as she finishes her pilgrimage. Besides her marriages to rich, old men she has had many illicit extra-marital affairs, as well, in her youth (45-47). The wife of Bath suffers from no moral qualms about her behavior as her habitual misquoting the scripture in her defense, shows (147-168). She surely is Continue reading...