Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a collection of several tales that are all told by different characters and all convey different messages. The story presented in the general prologue is that a group of pilgrims is traveling to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, and during their journey they take turns telling tales and talking about themselves. Chaucer uses the pilgrims to express his beliefs, about religion, marriage, social class, and many other topics. One of the pilgrims is the Manciple, who is a commoner and has the job of providing supplies for an institution and in this case, he is the caterer for a group of lawyers. Through the character of the Manciple, his prologue, and his tale, Chaucer showcases the importance of silence and discretion of speech, or by what some assume as to reveal the instability of the Manciple’s character.
In the “General Prologue” of the Canterbury Tales, the Manciple is described as being quiet, wise, and somewhat of a role model, but as the general prologue progresses, it can be assumed that he is sneaky and dishonest. For instance, “All caters might follow his example/ In buying victuals; he was never rash/ Whether he bought on credit or paid cash” (Chaucer, “General Prologue” 586-588). Chancer starts to say that people can resort to the Manciple for help in buying supplies and that he is careful with his money, always paying attention to what he has. He is said to work for the Inn of Courts, a law school, where he assists lawyers by preparing their meals. Chaucer describes his as being so sharp-witted that he can even swindle those who he works for, “That swich a lewed mannes wit shal pace/ The wisdom of an heep of lerned men?” (Chaucer, “General Prologue”. It can be inferr...
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...he conversation in his Prologue and the tale he shares. Though in the end Chaucer used the character of the Manciple, the General Prologue, the Manciple’s Prologue, and the Manciple’s Tale to convey the importance of silence and discretion of speech. It may have seemed as though Chaucer’s writing was long and flawed because of his age but the irony of speech is just how Chaucer conveyed his point.
Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales.” British Literature. Eds. Janet Alan, et.al. Evanston: McDougal Littel, 2009, 140-62. Print.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Manciple’s Prologue,” The Canterbury Tales. 14 March 2014. Handout.
Chaucer, Geoffrey . “The Manciple’s Tale,” The Canterbury Tales. 14 March 2014. Handout
Rossignol, Rosalyn.. "’The Manciple's Tale’" Bloom's Literature. 14 March 2014. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
In his Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer assembles a band of pilgrims who, at the behest of their host, engage in a story-telling contest along their route. The stories told along the way serve a number of purposes, among them to entertain, to instruct, and to enlighten. In addition to the intrinsic value of the tales taken individually, the tales in their telling reveal much about the tellers. The pitting of tales one against another provides a third level of complexity, revealing the interpersonal dynamics of the societal microcosm comprising the diverse group of pilgrims.
Chaucer first begins his sly jab at the Church’s motives through the description of the Pardoner’s physical appearance and attitude in his “Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a representation of the Church as a whole, and by describing the Pardoner and his defects, is able to show what he thinks of the Roman Catholic Church. All people present in the “Canterbury Tales” must tell a tale as a part of story-telling contest, and the pilgrim Chaucer, the character in the story Chaucer uses to portray himself, writes down the tales as they are told, as well as the story teller. The description of the Pardoner hints at the relationship and similarity between the Pardoner and the Church as a whole, as well as marks the beginning of the irony to be observed throughout the “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.” The narrator describes the Pardoner as an extremely over confident, arrogant, and unattractive man, noting that his hair is “as yellow as wex,” lying thin and fl...
...rn home. Each story plays on the roles of people during the time that they are told. The stories range like the characters traveling do. One story sticks out in particular when it comes to the relationship between men and women during the time of Chaucer. This story is told by the character of Allison whom tells the story of the wife of bath. The story and prologue look at the life of Allison and her views of how relationships between man and wife should be. She believed that women should be the head of the relationship and that men should be submissive to them. This reflects in her story in many ways. Her views on how relationships should be was different than the one that would be normal for the time period in which Chaucer lived
In The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, the stereotypes and roles in society are reexamined and made new through the characters in the book. Chaucer discusses different stereotypes and separates his characters from the social norm by giving them highly ironic and/or unusual characteristics. Specifically, in the stories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller’s Tale, Chaucer examines stereotypes of women and men and attempts to define their basic wants and needs.
The structure Geoffrey Chaucer chose for his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, of utilizing a melange of narrative voices to tell separate tales allows him to explore and comment on subjects in a multitude of ways. Because of this structure of separate tales, the reader must regard as extremely significant when tales structurally overlap, for while the reader may find it difficult to render an accurate interpretation through one tale, comparing tales enables him to lessen the ambiguity of Chaucer’s meaning. The Clerk’s Tale and The Merchant’s Tale both take on the institution of marriage, but comment on it in entirely different manner, but both contain an indictment of patriarchal narcissism and conceit.
(2) Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales edited by M.H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001). All future references will come from this text.
In the general prologue to The Canterbury Tales were seen the hierarchical barriers being broken by joining representatives of various strata on a pilgrimage. For this reason The Cook, The Squire and The Manciple were chosen. The first character is The Cook, where whose description begins with a rather daily language, but never quite approaching this informality. The physical experience of the cook is represented by grotesque details; he suffered from a sore in his shin that was visible to everyone even when he cooked. It also had the reputation of being dirty. And despite of having decent repertoire of dishes and cooking techniques, he was not very reliable with his job, as dirt and flies flying around his kitchen made a lot of their guests become intoxicated with th...
The Canterbury Tales is a literary masterpiece in which the brilliant author Geoffrey Chaucer sought out to accomplish various goals. Chaucer wrote his tales during the late 1300’s. This puts him right at the beginning of the decline of the Middle Ages. Historically, we know that a middle class was just starting to take shape at this time, due to the emerging commerce industry. Chaucer was able to see the importance and future success of the middle class, and wrote his work with them in mind. Knowing that the middle class was not interested in lofty philosophical literature, Chaucer wrote his work as an extremely comical and entertaining piece that would be more interesting to his audience. Also, Chaucer tried to reach the middle class by writing The Canterbury Tales in English, the language of the middle class rather than French, the language of the educated upper class. The most impressive aspect of Chaucer’s writing is how he incorporated into his piece some of his own controversial views of society, but yet kept it very entertaining and light on the surface level. One of the most prevalent of these ideas was his view that certain aspects of the church had become corrupt. This idea sharply contrasted previous Middle Age thought, which excepted the church’s absolute power and goodness unquestionably. He used corrupt church officials in his tales to illustrate to his audience that certain aspects of the church needed to be reformed. The most intriguing of these characters was the Pardoner. Chaucer’s satirical account of the Pardoner is written in a very matter-of-fact manner that made it even more unsettling with his audience. Chaucer uses his straightforwardness regarding the hypocrisy of the Pardoner, suggestive physiognomy of the character, and an interesting scene at the conclusion of the Pardoner’s Tale to inculcate his views of the church to his audience. The way that Chaucer used these literary devices to subtly make his views known to an audience while hooking them with entertainment, shows that Chaucer was truly a literary genius.
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.
The Canterbury Tales examines many important qualities of human nature. Chaucer purposely mocks the faults in his characters, and shows the hypocrisy and deceitfulness ...
The Canterbury Tales is a very popular and well known set of stories, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. This collection of stories is great entertainment and some even provide very good moral lessons; most of these stories show the contempt Chaucer had for the Church of England which had control at the time over most of England. Chaucer’s bias towards the corruption of the Church is best demonstrated in the Pardoner’s Prologue, in contradiction with the Parson’s Tale, and the level of power within the Church structure. These are two of the stories of the many that are in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a high level leader who is corrupt and yet enables him to convert the sinners even if he does it for personal gain. While the Parson is of lower standing in the Church, he is not corrupt, and gives the message to the pilgrims so that they might be forgiven.
Chaucer, Geoffrey (1987). “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.” The Riverside Chaucer, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 105-116.
...eveals insecurities of him in the process while that itself tells us more about the popular culture in this time. Chaucer, along with many of the other pilgrims attempts to place themselves in a socially desirable or even superior position. With the Narrator having the responsibility of articulating the tales to us in a coherent fashion, he might feel pressure to present himself as all-knowing or superior to his companions rather than show us an honest and unbiased point of view. After all, he is telling the story; the Narrator can ultimately choose to tell us whatever he pleases. The Narrator plays the role of telling tales and providing the groundwork for this pilgrimage story, but since his ideas and opinions are designed in such a particular way; he indirectly tells us so much more about not only about the pilgrimage but of this time period’s culture as a whole.
Chaucer is not some unknown literary author who is known only by a dozen people in the English field. Besides Shakespeare, Chaucer is probably one of the most well-known contributors to English literature, if not the most well-known. His name is instantly recognizable, and many a high school student learned of him through the oftentimes-painful reading of his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s work is an extremely important text in terms of the evolution of the English language; The Canterbury Tales set itself apart from other literary works at the time by being one of the first pieces of literature to be written in English instead of French, and its extreme popularity spurred the creations of even more English literature, allowing the language to regain its prominence and evolve into the English we know today (“Chaucer”; Kemmer). Today, it’s the most prominent example of Middle English work, and is studied not just for its literary worth but as evidence of what the language was like at the time. The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer’s importance are extreme, and the author enjoyed his fame during his life as well as long after, largely due to his abilities to make sound decisions, take risks, learned to learn as a professional, and transfer knowledge, skills that people even today can utilize to be successful.
As Chaucer wishes to fulfill Horace’s rule of great poetry, as stated Ars Poetica, to both “delight and instruct”, the entertaining changing in narration and implication of morals does just that. In addition to the previously mentioned reasons for preservation, Chaucer’s form of writing and ability to change styles to accurately depict narration allowed his work to stand out in comparison to other English works. When taking this all into context, the need for preservation of The Canterbury Tales is