In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the author tells a humorous set of stories through prose and poetry.
What type of literature are 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.
What types of literature did Chaucer write?
Chaucer wrote in a range of poetic forms and genres. He composed dream visions such as The Book of the Duchess, The Legend of Good Women and The Parliament of Fowls, as well as Troilus and Criseyde – the great exploration of love and loss set during the Trojan War.
What is the literary sources of The Canterbury Tales?
Chaucer used a wide variety of sources, but some, in particular, were used frequently over several tales, among them the Bible, Classical poetry by Ovid, and the works of contemporary Italian writers Petrarch and Dante. Chaucer was the first author to use the work of these last two.
What are the two themes in The Canterbury Tales?
Courtly love is a theme in The Knight’s Tale and The Wife of Bath’s Tale. The Church’s greed and deception can be seen throughout the tales. For example, The Friar’s Tale describes a corrupt church official that extorts lechers. The value of company is another theme in The Canterbury Tales.
How is The Canterbury Tales a piece of literature about literature?
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/
Which two of Canterbury Tales are in prose?
Though the majority of the writing in The Canterbury Tales is in verse and is usually categorized as poetry, there are two tales that are written in prose, or non-poetic writing with no rhythm, rhyme, or other poetic structures. These two stories are ”The Parson’s Tale” and ”The Tale of Melibee”.
What are the three literary periods of Chaucer?
Literary critics and historians have tended to partition Chaucer’s literary career into three major periods: the French, the Italian and the English, of which the last is a development of the first two.
What type of English did Chaucer use?
Middle English
Chaucer wrote during the final decades of the fourteenth century; hence, his language belongs to the later Middle English period. An important feature of the division between the Middle and the Early Modern periods was the emergence of a standard written variety of English.
What literary period is The Canterbury Tales?
To pass the time on the journey, they decide to each tell two tales to the assembled company on the journey there and the journey home. The result is regarded as a masterpiece of medieval literature, and The Canterbury Tales holds a central place in the English literary canon.
What are the main features of Chaucer’s 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.
How is The Canterbury Tales a satire?
Similarly, Chaucer satirizes cultural norms in The Canterbury Tales, using humor to point out significant problems in medieval English culture. For example, his exaggerated praise of the Monk as “extremely fine” contrasts amusingly with the lengthy description of the Monk’s horses, greyhounds, and hunting gear.
What is Chaucer realism?
Chaucer was the first English poet that wrote poetry with the technique of realism as evident from his book “Canterbury Tales”. This book contains real characters, real story, real description of images and real setting. Chaucer tried to sketch everything as he saw in his way to Canterbury.
Which verse form did Chaucer use in his Canterbury Tales?
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in iambic pentameter, with five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables. The rhyme scheme of a poem is the pattern of how the last word in the lines rhymes with others. The Canterbury Tales uses rhyming couplets, with every two lines rhyming with each other.
How did Chaucer influence literature?
In addition to his extensive body of literature, his poetry made three important contributions to English literature: he wrote in the English Vernacular and he is credited with introducing iambic pentameter and the Rhyme Royal to English poetry. He is best known for The Canterbury Tales.
What are the 5 types of characterization that Chaucer uses?
Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales, used five methods of characterizations to portray characters in the tale. The methods focused on a central characteristic, touchstone line, use of physiognomy, use of hyperbole, and use of incongruous or inappropriate details.
Is The Canterbury Tales a narrative poetry?
It was favored by medieval poets, most notably exemplified by Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which is a collection of 24 narrative poems.
Is The Canterbury Tales a novel or poem?
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 are the 4 literary periods?
Periods of American Literature
- The Colonial and Early National Period (17th century to 1830)
- The Romantic Period (1830 to 1870)
- Realism and Naturalism (1870 to 1910)
- The Modernist Period (1910 to 1945)
- The Contemporary Period (1945 to present)
What are the main literary periods?
World Literature Periods
- THE ENLIGHTENMENT (NEOCLASSICAL) PERIOD (C. 1660-1790)
- ROMANTIC PERIOD (c. 1790-1830)
- VICTORIAN PERIOD And The 19th Century (c. 1832-1901)
- MODERN PERIOD (c. 1914-1945)
- POSTMODERN PERIOD (c. 1945 onward)
What are the 4 major periods of English literature?
Let’s explore some of these major periods of the English Literature in further detail:
- Old English Literature: 5th – 14th Century.
- Medieval English Literature: 14th to 15th Century.
- Elizabethan Age or The Golden Age of English Literature: 16th Century to Early 17th Century.
- Restoration Age (17th-18th Century)