Chaucer: Satire And Humor Essay -- English Literature:

Chaucer caustic remark And HumorUntil Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, he was primarilyknow for being the writer of revel poems, such as The Parliament ofFowls, narratives of doomed passion, and stories of women wronged bytheir lovers. These works argon nonhing short of being breath taking,but they do not posses the raw power that the Canterbury Tales do.This unfinished poem, which is about 17,000 lines, is one of the most vivid works in all of literature. The poem introduces a group ofpilgrims journey from London to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becketat Canterbury. Together, the pilgrims represent a large section of14th-century English life. To help pass the time of the journey, thepilgrims answer to tell stories. These tales include a wide variety ofmedieval genres, from Gilbertian fables to religious lectures. Theyvividly describe medieval attitudes and customs in such beas as love,marriage, and religion. Chaucer was a master storyteller, and his withis shown thro ughout his work by the use of humor and satire, and itis most present in The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, ThePardoners Tale, and The Wife of Baths Tale.Many people that the most commonplace par to of the Canterbury Tales itThe Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, which has long been admired forthe lively, individualized portraits it offers. More recent reproofhas reacted against this approach, claiming that the portraits areindicative of social humor and satire, estates satire, and insistingthat they should not be read as individualized character portraitslike those in a novel (Gittes 15). It is the Prologue to theCanterbury Tales that serves to establish firmly the framework for theentire story- collecti... ...o her husband, and this defeats the whole office of the Wife ofBaths entire argument.For almost a septet hundred year old book, the Canterbury Tales stillis a very overwhelming collection of analyses of human life. Not muchhas changed in s all the same hundred years. Medieval traits that Chaucerdescribed in his tales such as corruption and edacity still play a majorpart in our parliamentary procedure today. Also, issues such as womans rights thatwere debated back then are still heavily debated today. No otherwriter has been able to extra the way Chaucer has analyzed anddescribed human life, and no one has even come close to doing it insuch a humorous and satirical way. The Canterbury Tales broughtGeoffrey Chaucer too his full artistic power, and it will for eerremain as one of the most brilliant and vivid piece of literature everwritten in the English language.