The Canterbury Tales

The Pardoner's Tale is an interesting and telling excerpt from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. The Pardoner, a member of the clergy of the Catholic church admits in his prologue that he is a...

This is sort of a puzzling question because you don't mention which two "morals" you have. Also the consensus is that there are only two morals to The Wife of Bath's Tale, although the Wife...

Literary critics cannot agree on the identity of the old man, but there are several possibilities of who this mysterious character may be. First, it's possible that he is Death itself. When the old...

Chaucer was a genius of irony. He frequently exposes hypocrisy among all of his characters, especially those in the clergy. "The Pardoner's Tale" is perhaps the most extreme example in the book....

The Wife of Bath holds a favorable view of marriage. She considers herself an authority on the subject, since she was first married at age twelve and has had five husbands since then. Her views of...

Chaucer has a low opinion of the monk, as he does most of the clergy. Chaucer uses a subtle sarcasm to express his dislike. He describes the monk as liking to spend his time hunting and riding...

Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, written in the fourteenth century, is notable for several reasons, one of which is his satirical look at some aspects of English society in his time. One of...

It's so long since I read the Canterbury Tales in full that I wouldn't venture an opinion on this, but I would point out that Chaucer is often very ironical and that, even when he appears to be...

A metaphor compares two dissimilar things that share the same characteristics, without using "like or as." The following example is a metaphor in the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. Describing...

The initial 30 pilgrims are all gathered at the Tabard inn prior to starting their pilgrimage. The end goal of their travels is Canterbury, which seems like a cop out answer. The reason that all...

The Canterbury Tales, most likely composed between 1387–1400 CE, are centered on the journey of 31 pilgrims (including the poet) to visit Canterbury Cathedral to pay homage Thomas a Becket, the...

At the time Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the General Prologue and the twenty-four stories in The Canterbury Tales, pilgrimages—journeys to sacred places undertaken as an act of religious devotion, an act...

The purpose of the prologue is to give readers a general overview of the characters that are present, why they are present there, and what they will be doing. The narrator begins by telling us how...

Not surprisingly, quite a lot of clergy embark on the pilgrimage to Canterbury. They include clergy with titles still common to us today: nun, monk, cleric, parson, canon, prioress, and the nun's...

The Wife of Bath's story obviously reveals her own personality and her desire for sex. She is obviously a very lustful woman who has a preoccupation with sex. In that time period, a woman showing...

Chaucer's "Nun's Priest's Tale" relates the adventures (and misadventures) of the proud rooster Chanticleer. The key word here is “proud,” for the main theme of the tale is pride. Chanticleer is a...

"The Wife of Bath's Tale" and "The Pardoner's Tale" are two of the more entertaining stories in The Canterbury Tales. Both have strong, clear morals or lessons. "The Wife of Bath's Tale" conveys...

The answer to this question is not as straightforward as it first appears. If the question is asking specifically about "pilgrims," then the answer is 30. The narrator makes 1, and he meets 29...

Details on the physical description of the Doctor in The Canterbury Tales are extremely sparse, at least within the confines of the General Prologue. Most of what is said of the Doctor pertains to...

I'm not actually sure if Chaucer disliked any of the pilgrims per se. One of Chaucer's main goals is to represent people from many different classes and social circles, and so he's trying to...

The Pardoner in "The Pardoner's Tale" personifies death as an "old, old fellow." He meets three drinkers while they are out searching for him--death. The three are drinking in the tavern in the...

This piece of literature is the very first of its kind. It is the first collection/anthology of short stories as we know them today. Chaucer brilliantly gives us an amazingly accurate cross...

In The Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer, the Manciple's job is to purchase food for a group of lawyers, much like a caterer. Although he is illiterate, he is able to bargain shop and spend less on the...

The General Prologue introduction of the Wife of Bath in the Canterbury Tales describes her in detail telling her location, most pronounced physical characteristic, occupation, skill, religious...

[Another way to categorize the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales is as follows.] Pilgrims who are related to the feudal system include the Knight, the Squire, the Franklin (a "free man" in feudal...

The purpose of the "Pardoner’s Tale" is to show greed and corruption within the church. To understand this, one has to be sure to read the prologue to the tale, which gives us real insight into...

Like many elements in Chaucer's contemporary society, the Catholic Church is both mocked and respected in The Canterbury Tales. The frame narrative opens with the medieval Estates Satire, whose...

In addition to the other responses here, we can consider Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales important on a variety of levels. Since this is really a question of value, how we evaluate the importance...

The message delivered in the Wife of Bath's tale is related to the quest embarked upon by the knight in the story. In order to avoid being put to death for raping a young maiden, the knight has to...

Chaucer says that people want to go on pilgrimages in the spring. He begins The Canterbury Tales by describing a time "whan that Aprille with his shoures soote"—that is, when April with its soft...

"The General Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales serves two main functions: to offer context for the text to follow and to introduce all of the pilgrims. In fulfilling both of these purposes, Chaucer...

It's thought up by the man who runs the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, where the pilgrims meet, who is usually referred to as the "Host". He talks to the pilgrims, about to set off for Canterbury, and...

While the three rioters in the Pardoner’s Tale are restlessly looking for death, they meet a poor, old man on the way. An old man, and a poor, with them did meet Although the old man talks to...

Irony, in its basic form, is a literary device or technique authors use to demonstrate how events are not always as they seem. In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400) uses this...

There wouldn't be anything unusual in today's society about the Wife of Bath. She'd be one of many women of a certain age with the wealth and the independence to lead the kind of life she wants to...

The main characters in "The Wife of Bath's Tale" are the knight and the hag who saves him. The knight is a young warrior who rapes a young girl and is brought before Guinevere and a jury of women...

There is no overall moral lesson for the tales. Each one has something different to say. That's what makes the Canterbury Tales so lasting. Each generation can find something in the characters and...

In the Prologue, Chaucer writes of the Wife of Bath, "At making cloth she had so great a bent / She bettered those of Ypres and even of Ghent" (lines 447-448). The Wife of Bath works in business...

The friar doesn't look much like we would probably expect a friar to look. Since friars are supposed to live in poverty, Chaucer's friar is definitely not a typical friar. I'll indicate the...

The Wife of Bath is interrupted several times during her initial introduction to her story. It is an interesting point that people continue to interrupt her and badger her far more than the other...

Overall, one would have to say that Chaucer portrays the Oxford Cleric in a positive light. When one considers Chaucer's scathing portrayal in The Canterbury Tales of the worldliness and corruption...

Perhaps the best insight into the growing middle class from Chaucer's perspective is his description of The Franklin and that of the group of tradesmen that follows it. The Franklin is a very...

A great adjective to describe the Wife of Bath would be independent. As a wealthy widow, she enjoys the kind of independence that was very rare for a woman in those days. Her considerable wealth...

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer pays great attention to the clergy. Already in the Prologue, six clerics are described in detail. These are the Prioress, the Monk, the Friar, the Summoner, the...

In The Canterbury Tales, the pilgrims—a group of 29 travelers and the narrator—are traveling with the objective of making a four-day religious pilgrimage to the Cathedral in Canterbury, where the...

The Wife of Bath opens her tale by telling of one of King Arthur’s knights, whom the Wife of Bath describes as a “lusty bacheler,” rapes a young girl: “By verray force, he rafte hire maydenhed”...

Certainly the three young men Geoffrey Chaucer refers to as "rioters" or "revelers" (depending on the translation) in "The Pardoner's Tale" are suffering from some serious character flaws. The two...

Chaucer is critical of most of the pilgrims introduced in "The General Prologue" to his Canterbury Tales. "Idealized" is a strong word, implying that Chaucer sees the character as the perfect...

The main "message" of The Knight's Tale may well be a concern with the proper ordering of the elements that compose a person's being and soul. While there are clearly more than one theme, with the...

The place to construct the answer to this question is in the general prologue, the part of The Canterbury Tales where Chaucer introduces the characters. From the outset, it is clear that Chaucer...