"The Canterbury Tales"

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" and how, although there was an underlying tone of the battle of the sexes and certainly the battle of the classes, it was the fascinating stories of the "Knight", the "Wife of Bath", the "Miller" and the other stories that captivated the Englishmen of the time. In particular, it discusses how men, women, love, sex, desire, penance, evil and forgiveness are the themes that diverge and come together to provide today's reader with some insight into how people lived and thought over 500 years ago.

From the Paper:

"The Knight's Tale begins the Canterbury Tales with a deceptive sort of calm and courtesy, and even a sort of honor that knights were supposed to reflect, but in the real world of the 15th Century, seldom did. Chaucer, one may infer, began with the Knight's tale and then spiraled downward in terms of sexuality, venality, pomposity, and the class and gender struggles appropriate to his times. The fact that these pilgrims seemed fairly amicable on their procession to Canterbury seems a departure from the "real world" which intrudes in the tales themselves. Chances are these "pilgrims" were so self-centered, and eager to tell their tales, that they did not recognize themselves for what they truly were."

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