Cheeky Chaucer: An Analysis on Chaucer´s Characters

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Cheeky Chaucer “An Analysis of Chaucer's Characters” Chaucer's Prologue is an introduction to the characters that he will soon be talking about in his short stories. It was written to combat the Italian Buchartio, and write his own version to achieve fame. The reason that the Italian version became so popular is because of how it was written in the Italian of the street people, in other words, it could be understood by the whole of Italy, not just the rich. Chaucer wanted to do the same thing, but came to halt when he was deciding what language to write it in, he thought of Russian and other languages, but soon decided on English. This is extremely important because it is the first time that English has ever been written down, usually it is just a spoken language with no written form. This is why it was so important to the English language that he wrote it specifically in English. Giving the language a written form, sort of. It was a mixture of German of the east and native language from the Anglo Saxons. It is difficult to read, because this is the first time English has been written down, so there wasn’t any set way to spell words, and they were spelled how they sounded phonetically.”Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March Hath Perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich liquor” (Page 97 Lines 1-3). Typically, this meant that the same word was spelled fifty different ways throughout the entire Prologue. Though it is hard to read it is still an excellent story, and has very depth in its characters, which are fully developed and give further detail into the story and make it one of the best stories in English there is today. Initially, my first favorite character in Chaucer’s Prologue was... ... middle of paper ... ...that when that song was sung he’d have to preach and tune his honey-tongue And (well he could) win silver from the crowd”(Page 690-696 & 731-733) this is exactly how people are today only doing things for themselves, not for the others around them. This is one of the things that Chaucer stresses throughout his stories, that greed and other selfish acts only will lead to the destruction of humankind. Characters from Chaucer’s Prologue are very well developed and full fledged characters, he goes very far into the depth of the character which only enhances his story, making it one of the highest regarded in the English language. Whether it be the characters, of the Pardoner, the Nun, or the rich Monk, it all expresses things of people that need to be changed in society, which I agree wholeheartedly with. Works Cited Prentice Hall Literature Vol. 1 Page 90-120

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