scholarly journals Pagans, Tartars, Moslems, and Jews in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 129-132
Author(s):  
Gretcheo Iman Meyer-Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Canterbury Tales ◽  
Social World ◽  
Ethical Attitudes ◽  
The Canterbury Tales

Brenda Deen Schildgen's analysis of the Canterbury Tales explores thecontemporary worldviews of medieval Europeans. Chaucer, an Englishcourt poet, wrote probably his greatest work- the Canterbury Tales - at theend of the fourteenth century. It is a collection of 24 tales told by pilgrimsas they make their way to Canterbury cathedral. Chaucer frames the taleswith a prologue and dialogue between the tales.Schildgen's book examines the eight tales set outside Christian Europe.Much of the book discusses the medieval view of paganism and the continuinginfluence of pagan philosophy on medieval intellectual thought.She analyses the "Man of Law's Tale," whose story takes place in bothpagan and Muslim lands. (It is worth pointing out here that, although by thefourteenth century the Mongols increasingly were becoming Muslims, theTartars in the "Squire's Tale" are associated with paganism.) In addition todiscussing the tales involving pagans and Muslims, Schildgen analyzes theanti-Semitic "Prioress' Tale."Drawing on Habermas's theory of practical discourse (in which discussantsengage in a discourse where each is aware of and open to the other'sperspectives and interpretations), Schildgen argues that the Canterbu,yTales is an excellent example of what Habermas has in mind. Traditionalanalysis states that Chaucer does not favor one pilgrim over the others, andSchildgen takes this a step further by arguing that the Canterbury Talesincorporates "a range of intellectual and ethical attitudes that thrived inChaucer's pan-European contemporary cultural and social world." She ...

scholarly journals Chaucer and Crusader Ethics: Youth, Love, and the Material World

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (296) ◽  
pp. 618-639
Author(s):  
Marcel Elias
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Canterbury Tales ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Material World ◽  
The World ◽  
Ideological Differences ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
Knight's Tale ◽  
The Canterbury Tales

Abstract In this essay, I argue that the Squire’s portrait in the Canterbury Tales is indebted to fourteenth-century crusade discourse, and that the ideological differences between the Knight and the Squire are well understood in relation to contemporary debates on the ethics of crusaders. Drawing upon diverse literary and historical sources, I focus on three rhetorical juxtapositions, which, I argue, Chaucer appropriated from contemporary critics of the morals and conduct of crusaders: between aged wisdom and youthful passion to admonish their military intemperance; between love of God and love of the world, often couched in terms of chivalric love-service, to decry their vainglorious motives; and between humble and ostentatious attire to denounce their excessive attachment to the material world. The evaluative relation between the two pilgrims, established in the General Prologue, is developed in the Knight’s Tale and the Squire’s Tale. Within the Squire’s scope of experience, key episodes of the Knight’s Tale fulfil the role of cautionary exempla in a vein similar to those extensively deployed in writings on and by crusaders to illustrate the benefits and dangers of specific attitudes and behaviours. The Squire’s Tale, drawing upon the motif of the ‘noble infidel’, further exposes the deficiencies of the crusading philosophy of which its teller is a symbol.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Samantha Katz Seal
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Canterbury Tales ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
House Of Fame ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Canterbury Tales ◽  
Literary Fame

This Introduction provides an overview of the pressures that late-fourteenth-century England placed upon traditional models of obtaining human posterity from the achievements of paternity. The introduction sets out the book’s argument that Chaucer himself was deeply concerned with questions of human authority in the face of man’s mortality, providing both biographical detail and a close reading of Chaucer’s discussions of literary fame within his early poem, The House of Fame. This introduction also sets up the book’s methodological priorities, introduces the book’s structure and chapter divisions, and argues in favor of addressing The Canterbury Tales in a fluid, non-traditional order.

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Merchant’s Tale and the Dialectic of Elevation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Fruoco
Keyword(s):  
Geoffrey Chaucer ◽  
Canterbury Tales ◽  
Moyen Âge ◽  
The Canterbury Tales ◽  
Moyen Age

Geoffrey Chaucer pose dans The Canterbury Tales un regard unique sur l’évolution de la poésie anglaise durant le Moyen Âge. L’alternance de genres et de styles poétiques différents lui permet de refléter tout le potentiel de la littérature par le biais d’un réagencement des images, symboles et conventions qui la définissent. Néanmoins, ce qui fait la force de Chaucer dans The Canterbury Tales, est sa capacité à développer un dialogue entre les différents récits constituant l’œuvre, ainsi que sa facilité à renverser nos attentes en extrayant son public d’un roman de chevalerie pour le propulser dans l’univers carnavalesque du fabliau, comme c’est le cas dans The Merchant’s Tale. En jouant avec l’imaginaire de l’arbre et du fruit, Chaucer nous prive dans ce conte de toute élévation et fait de son poirier un arbre inversé.

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