One of the most famous works of medieval literature is based around a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. Geoffey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written between 1387 and 1400, is a long poem concerning a group of thirty pilgrims on their way from Southwark, in south London, to the shrine of medieval literature in Canterbury.
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What is The Canterbury Tales story about?
What is The Canterbury Tales about? Chaucer’s long poem follows the journey of a group of pilgrims, 31 including Chaucer himself, from the Tabard Inn in Southwark to St Thomas à Becket’s shrine at Canterbury Cathedral.
What was the purpose of The Canterbury Tales?
The tales could be described both as social realism and as estates satire. At the same time that Chaucer takes care to honestly show the perspective of each of his characters, he also aims to critique the hypocrisy of the church and the social problems posed by Medieval politics and social custom.
Why is Canterbury a place of pilgrimage?
Canterbury Cathedral has been a major pilgrimage destination for many centuries and it was the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170 and his subsequent canonisation in 1173 that made Canterbury Cathedral the third most important site of Christian pilgrimage in the world, after Jerusalem and Rome.
How many pilgrimages are there in Canterbury Tales?
31 pilgrims
Written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century, The Canterbury Tales tells the story of a group of 31 pilgrims who meet while travelling from the Tabard Inn in Southwark to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury.
What type of story is The Canterbury Tales?
Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a frame narrative, a tale in which a larger story contains, or frames, many other stories. In frame narratives, the frame story functions primarily to create a reason for someone to tell the other stories; the frame story doesn’t usually have much plot of its own.
Why was pilgrimage so important in Chaucer’s time?
The most important aspect of real-life pilgrimage used by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales is the fact that a wide variety of people, of different classes and different places might be found together on a pilgrimage.
What is the moral lesson of Canterbury Tales?
Lessons on Honor & Honesty
One of the main lessons throughout all of the tales and main story is that honor and honesty is valued. In stories like the Physician’s Tale, we see that the lying Appius who lusts after a young girl, is eventually caught for his lies and thrown in jail where he kills himself.
Which pilgrimage is mentioned first Canterbury Tales?
The Canterbury Tales, frame story by Geoffrey Chaucer, written in Middle English in 1387–1400. The framing device for the collection of stories is a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury, Kent.
What is the most famous Canterbury Tale?
Perhaps the most famous – and best-loved – of all of the tales in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ‘The Miller’s Tale‘ is told as a comic corrective following the sonorous seriousness of the Knight’s tale.
What are 3 reasons The Canterbury Tales are important?
The Canterbury Tales is considered Chaucer’s masterpiece and is among the most important works of medieval literature for many reasons besides its poetic power and entertainment value, notably its depiction of the different social classes of the 14th century CE as well as clothing worn, pastimes enjoyed, and language/
Is The Canterbury Tales religious?
Written during a tumultuous period of Christianity, The Canterbury Tales provides a window into the debasement of Christianity under the Catholic Church during Chaucer’s time. But on the balance, Chaucer is also mindful of the fact that there are still individuals who practice what they preach.
What is the main feature of The Canterbury Tales?
The tales are by turns satirical, elevated, pious, earthy, bawdy, and comical. The reader should not accept the naïve narrator’s point of view as Chaucer’s. Protagonists Each individual tale has protagonists, but Chaucer’s plan is to make none of his storytellers superior to others; it is an equal company.
What does Chaucer say about the pilgrimage?
Some stories are bawdy fabliaux, some saints’ lives or serious treatises. Chaucer introduces his pilgrimage by saying that people want to travel in spring on pilgrimages, especially to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury – who has helped them when they were sick (I 18).
Is The Canterbury Tales hard to read?
The Canterbury Tales are in Middle English. We’re not going to lie to you – Middle English is really hard to read. At first. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of studying pronunciation guides and glossaries and reading aloud to get it.
Who are the 30 pilgrims in Canterbury Tales?
The Pilgrims
- The Narrator. The narrator makes it quite clear that he is also a character in his book.
- The Knight. The first pilgrim Chaucer describes in the General Prologue, and the teller of the first tale.
- The Wife of Bath.
- The Pardoner.
- The Miller.
- The Prioress.
- The Monk.
- The Friar.
What is the main theme of the prologue to The Canterbury Tales?
Social Satire
The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an estates satire. In the Host’s portraits of the pilgrims, he sets out the functions of each estate and satirizes how members of the estates – particularly those of the Church – fail to meet their duties.
What is the purpose and message of the Prologue to Canterbury Tales?
The General Prologue establishes the frame for the Tales as a whole (or of the intended whole) and introduces the characters/storytellers. These are introduced in the order of their rank in accordance with the three medieval social estates (clergy, nobility, and commoners and peasantry).
What was the purpose of the pilgrimage?
A pilgrimage is a journey to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion. A pilgrimage is a journey to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion. A pilgrim is more than a tourist and a pilgrimage is more than a journey. A pilgrim travels with a spiritual purpose, a goal to be closer to God.
Why is Chaucer’s Knight taking the pilgrimage to Canterbury?
He has served the Christian God by fighting in the crusades, and now, goes to pay homage to a Christian saint in Canterbury, another show of the Knight’s unwavering beliefs and faith.
When did the pilgrimage start in Canterbury Tales?
In 1387 the fictional pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales assembled on this same spot in what was then the yard of the Tabard Inn, before riding to Canterbury Cathedral to visit the shrine of Thomas à Becket.