In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the prioress’s behavior can be interpreted as being part of the change occurring within religious institutions, which were changing to allow for freedom of thought and individual choice, as the nun does when she takes the liberty of customizing her fine garb by wearing it with beads and a gold brooch. The nun is one of the first characters to be given a name and as such is identified as being an individual, and not just seen as being a nun. The nun’s deviation from expected behavior and norms can thus be seen as a positive trait which Chaucer praises as women became more independent and redefined their own roles in society. Excessive understatement, negative imagery, and refined diction, however satirize the unwarranted care that the nun places on her appearance as well as her shallow take on piety. The corruption and hypocrisy of religious institutions and of aristocracy are highlighted through the nun’s lack of true religious devotion and effort to gain reverence through the mimicking of the court’s manners. The prioress represents the decline of morality and devoutness in monasteries and convents in the Middle Ages, and is an embodiment of the vice present within nobility. Though the narrator praises the refined etiquette and manners that the nun practices, the praise inadvertently allows for the reader to picture the nun as being monstrous and grotesque. The narrator’s passing remarks on her actions allow for the underlying cruelty in the nun to be revealed. Because the narrator fails to notice the corrupt nature of the prioress, the narrator is associated with superficiality as he focuses on the appearance of people and fails to understand the flaws in their actions.
Through u...
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...he nun’s appearance as being “nat undergrown”(156), and praises her figure, while undermining the cause of such a figure, which would be due to the indulging in an excess of food. The narrator focuses on her appearance, describing her well formed nose, glass eyes, and small red lips, which give the prioress the image of being a coy damsel, however, because this description of the prioress is followed by a detailed account of her manners and actions, the beautiful image that would have been formed initially is undermined and instead the readers are able to see her true self, which has a monstrous soul twisted by corruption and deceit.
Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "From The Canterbury Tales The General Prologue." The Norton Anthology of English Literature The Middle Ages. By Stephen Greenblatt. Ninth ed. Vol. A. New
York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 246-47. Print.
In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer fully explicates the cultural standard known as curteisye through satire. In the fourteenth century curteisye embodied sophistication and an education in French international culture. The legends of chilvalric knights, conversing in the language of courtly love, matured during this later medieval period. Chaucer himself matured in the King's Court, and he reveled in his cultural status, but he also retained an anecdotal humor about curteisye. One must only peruse his Tales to discern these sentiments. In the General Prologue, he meticulously describes the Prioress, satirically examining her impeccable table manners. In the Miller's Tale Chaucer juxtaposes courtly love with animalistic lust, and in various other instances he mentions curteisye, or at least alludes to it, with characteristic Chaucerian irony. These numerous references provide the reader with a remarkably rich image of the culture and class structure of late fourteenth century England.
The Nun or Prioress is on page 218 of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, seventh edition volume one. Her passage discusses her impeccable manners.
There are seven deadly sins that, once committed, diminish the prospect of eternal life and happiness in heaven. They are referred to as deadly because each sin is closely linked to another, leading to other greater sins. The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice, and lechery. Geoffrey Chaucer's masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, provided an excellent story about the deadly sins. Focusing mainly on the sins of pride, gluttony and greed, the characters found in The Canterbury Tales, particularly The Pardoner's Tale, were so overwhelmed by their earthly desires and ambitions that they failed to see the effects of their sinful actions, therefore depriving themselves of salvation.
To see the entire criticism of the Prioress’s tale, the General Prologue must first be recounted. The Prioress was described as a very correct lady; all of her actions showed a very refined lady. She was also portrayed as being very sympathetic, “She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.” (lines 144-146) She was sentimental enough to feed animals the best food she had. Thus, the Prioress was presented as a very compassionate, well-mannered lady.
She tried very hard to be perceived as courtly and dainty, something she was not. “To counterfeit a courtly kind of grace” (Chaucer, “Prologue” 143). Chaucer was quick to realize that everything the Nun did was an act to seem courtly. She was obsessed with the courteous world and romance. She spoke French to try to seem well-educated but the French she spoke was incorrect. “And she spoke daintily in French, extremely, / After the school of Stratford-atte-Bowe; /French in the Paris style she did not know. /” (Chaucer “Prologue” 128-30). She tries speaking French which is known to be one of the world’s most romantic languages at the time but, she ends up making a fool of herself because she is doing it incorrectly. Chaucer also describes her as having remarkable table manners but also makes sure to inform the reader that it is all self-taught because, she does not come from a courtly world. “Of table manners she had learnt it all,” (Chaucer “Prologue”127). Chaucer also leaves out a description of how she interacts with people on purpose instead shows how she interacts with
The Catholic Church has long been a fixture in society. Throughout the ages, it has withstood wars and gone through many changes. It moved through a period of extreme popularity to a time when people regarded the Church with distrust and suspicion. The corrupt people within the church ruined the ideals Catholicism once stood for and the church lost much of its power. In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer primarily satirizes the corruptness of the clergy members to show how the Catholic Church was beginning its decline during the Middle Ages.
Throughout literature, relationships can often be found between the author of a story and the story that he writes. In Geoffrey Chaucer's frame story, Canterbury Tales, many of the characters make this idea evident with the tales that they tell. A distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and the tale that he tells.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, (written c. 1387), is a richly varied compilation of fictional stories as told by a group of twenty-nine persons involved in a religious pilgrimage to Canterbury, England during the fourteenth century. This journey is to take those travelers who desire religious catharsis to the shrine of the holy martyr St. Thomas a Becket of Canterbury. The device of a springtime pilgrimage provided Chaucer with a diverse range of characters and experiences, with him being both a narrator and an observer. Written in Middle English, each tale depicts parables from each traveler.
Chaucer, in his female pilgrimage thought of women as having an evil-like quality that they always tempt and take from men. They were depicted as untrustworthy, selfish and vain and often like caricatures not like real people at all. Through the faults of both men and women, Chaucer showed what is right and wrong and how one should live. Under the surface, however, lies a jaded look of women in the form that in his writings he seems to crate them as caricatures and show how they cause the downfall of men by sometimes appealing to their desires and other times their fears. Chaucer obviously had very opinionated views of the manners and behaviours of women and expressed it strongly in The Canterbury Tales. In his collection of tales, he portrayed two extremes in his prospect of women. The Wife of Bath represented the extravagant and lusty woman where as the Prioress represented the admirable and devoted followers of church. Chaucer delineated the two characters contrastingly in their appearances, general manners, education and most evidently in their behaviour towards men. Yet, in the midst of disparities, both tales left its readers with an unsolved enigma.
In his story titled "The Canterbury Tales" Chaucer seems to truly admire some of the pilgrims while displaying disdain and sarcasm towards the others. The pilgrims that he most seems to admire are the Knight, the Oxford Clerk and the Parson. The knight he seems to admire based on his notation of all the campaigns in which the knight has participated in service to just causes. Chaucer makes mention of the knight 's worthiness, wisdom and humility "Though so illustrious, he was very wise And bore himself as meekly as a maid." (67,68 Chaucer). It seems as though Chaucer admires the knights great ability both in warfare and practicing what he preaches. This can be seen in his description of all those he seems to admire in the tale. The Oxford Clerk
Chaucer's society represents every social class. In doing so, it shows what it takes to actually make a society function. The different people carry different stories to share. These stories carry lessons learned in hopes of sharing them with others so that they may not end up in the same predicaments. After all, that is the main point of sharing stories, isn't it?
Chaucer introduces us to several types of women in the General Prologue of his famous work the Canterbury Tales. Among these women are women of rank and social status: the Prioress, the Nun, and the Wife of Bath. Although they are surrounded by various types of men, these women told tales that made men think twice about crossing their paths. As we read about these women in the prologue, we also get a sense of whom they are: they have money, authority, and an air about them that suggests that they are not just on the pilgrimage just to save their own souls (the Wife of Bath definitely shows this trait better than her religious counterparts.) However, it is not just the women who stand for their sisters; the Clerk jumps on the female bandwagon with a tale of his own.
In the reading "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer, there is a detailed description about the nun Prioress in the "General Prologue". Chaucer uses physical and spiritual relationships to show the characteristics of a person. When we see the nun in relationship to other characters, for example the Knight, Chaucer makes the reader see two types of people. On one hand, the nun who gives much importance to minor things. On the other hand, the Knight who gives much importance to things that really matter. To describe how the nun was Chaucer writes with irony the description of the nun Prioress, everything that Chaucer says about her means the opposite.
The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is a masterpiece of satire due to the frequent use of verbal irony and insults towards the characters and their roles in society. A major source of Irony is Chaucer’s representation of the Church. He uses the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar, who are all supposed to be holy virtuous people to represent the Church. In his writing he suggests that they are actually corrupt, break their vows and in no way model the “holiness” of Christianity.
There have been many questions about the moral, ethical and religious views of the Wife of bath, the Pardoner, and the Oxford Clerk. These three characters from, The Canterbury Tale, by Chaucer displays morals that are still relevant to the world today. These elementary morals have been taught since a young age, causing these morals to be embedded in one’s mind and making these morals, fundamental morals that one should practice in life.