Chaucer’s portrayal of the Monk in the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales reveals what in modern terms may be called a critique of institutionalized religion. Namely, the synopsis of the Monk provided explicitly contrasts with presupposed visions of the archetype of the holy man. The Monk is, in other...

Although The Canterbury Tales was produced by Chaucer nearly eight centuries ago and the world is vastly changed place from his era, one thing remains the same: human nature. Just like in the 1300’s people will occupy or possess various ranges on the moral compass. There will always be the...

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales covers a number of topics and voices across the various tales. By comparing two of them it is possible to see a pattern emerge in prominence of issues of the day. In the Miller’s tale and the Wife of Bath’s the stories revolve around marriage and faithfulness...

The Pardoner’s Tale is primarily based around the concepts of hypocrisy and morality. The initial part of the tale sees the Pardoner introduce himself as an immoral character, then proceeds to start telling a moral tale, an exemplum. Although it is initially unclear why the Pardoner is being so honest...

This paper discusses the use of similes by Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales. It focuses on the explanation of a simile as a figure of speech and later examines the functions of selected similes in two different contexts. First, the function of one simile in the context of “The...