Canterbury Tales Critical Anal
Canterbury Tales Critical AnalNear the turn of the fourteenth century the art of composing romantic poetry entertained the inhabitants of northwestern England. Many highly educated men participated in this art and form of entertainment. Most created tales, termed epics, were also very important to the history of the individual author's nation or race. One of the three great epic poets of this period, Geoffrey Chaucer, fashioned a collection of tales that was both unique and everlasting. This collection of short stories, entitled the Canterbury Tales, was unlike any other epic poem of the time period. Instead of following the traditional format for writing an epic poem, which included writing about several characters of high social standing, Chaucer gave his readers a taste of social variety by involving various characters from a spectrum of social classes. In the Canterbury Tales, this diverse group of characters was individually responsible for narrating two stories while on a pilgrimage that journeyed from Southwark to Canterbury, and two stories while on the return trip from Canterbury to Southwark. Chaucer only finished twenty-two of these narratives before his death in 1400. Still, through the twenty-two stories he did write, he managed to capture the culture and mind set of England's occupants during this transitional period between the medieval and Renaissance era. This marked change in times in which medieval man insisted upon being a member of the spiritual community and thought that the individual had no right to test the "truths" of time; conflicted with the Renaissance man who disputed the catholic norm and thought it right to form his own separate social groups.
Geoffrey Chaucer best illustrates this drastic change in times in one of his twenty-two stories included in the Canterbury Tales titled the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. In this excellent piece of literary work a woman, the Wife of Bath, tests the biblical and moral standards of the time. The Wife of Bath, in her prologue, explains her life and defends all of her previous actions of love and lust. In the Wife of Bath's Prologue, the Wife of Bath explains to the rest of the pilgrims on the journey how she has previously been married five times. During this age, and even today, the idea of having multiple spouses is considered a sin and looked down upon by those in the Catholic church. To counter this belief, she argues many valid points that one can find it hard to disagree with her actions. For all three of her arguments she refers to biblical text. The first reference to the holy Bible she makes is of the many wives of Solomon. She explains that in the Bible, Solomon, while the king of Egypt, had close to seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (Chaucer 118, ln. 35-37). In her second allusion to the Bible she quotes St. Paul, "It is better to marry, than to burn (Chaucer 118, ln. 55-58)." Her final implication to the Bible highlights Lamech and Jacob,...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.