The Canterbury Tales

The Wife of Bath is a very colorful character. She is a feminist ahead of her time who's managed to achieve a degree of independence that was all too rare for Medieval women. Having married five...

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...

Irony occurs when events turn out the opposite of what is expected, while satire pokes fun at social problems. Both the monk and the friar are supposed to live humble lives in service of others and...

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....

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

The Knight is a mostly positive example of the second estate, the nobility. He is an aristocrat, yet he dresses simply and does not abuse his power among the group members. While some critics have...

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...

[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...

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'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 narrative art is most prominently displayed and praised in his epic poem The Canterbury Tales. While many sources cite Chaucer as the father of poetry, he was also keenly observant of...

"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 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...

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...

Bath is a well-known city about 100 miles west of London. It was once the site of Roman-built baths, and as such, was a fashionable tourist destination for many of the wealthy English and Scottish...

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...

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...

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...

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...

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, 32 characters make the trip to Canterbury. 29 of these are mentioned in line 24 of the “General Prologue.” The narrator joins this group (making 30). The...

"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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

First, the Knight and the squire are two people. The squire is the Knight's son. The Knight is the first pilgrim described in the General Prologue and he is described in glowing terms. He...

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...

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...

The narrator certainly has much praise to offer for the Wife of Bath's haunt, or skill, in cloth-making, which is evident in what she is wearing. He says that she is more skilful than the...

The genre of The Canterbury Tales is hard to pin down. It is certainly poetry—other than the two prose tales, the work is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter. The Canterbury Tales are...

There are two primary women introduced in the General Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The first woman to be introduced is the Prioress. Her given name is Madame Eglentyne and...