It is difficult to ascribe motives to authors, even those living who can speak to their works. Multiple factors, both intentional and less so, shape a work. With works as old as Chaucer's, the difficulty of pinpointing a motive or a meaning is even more difficult, since we are always imposing at least a few of our own world views on these texts. We can, however, describe qualities that make sense of the creation of a work like The Canterbury Tales in 1390 England, using some biographical details as well.
Chaucer wrote this work later in his life, leaving it unfinished when he died. The idea of a collection of tales, within the frame narrative (stories with a story), was already popular. Boccaccio's Decameron was highly popular and Chaucer almost certainly knew this Italian work that details an aristocratic escape from the plague, made more tolerable though story-telling. Chaucer adapts the concept to an English pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket, in Canterbury. This adds both a religious and a somewhat political aspect, as Becket was an early and significant English saint, murdered by a king who overstepped his authority.
The general prologue to this work contains two other medieval genres: the reverdie and the estates satire. The first 18 lines of the prologue comprise a rich reverdie passage (regreening or spring awakening) that links the idea of pilgrimage to the need for spiritual "regreening": the last line declares that the pilgrims traveling on pilgrimage to "seek" Becket in thanks for his intervention when they were "sick." All who travel are in some way spiritually sick, and that sense of incompleteness sets the pilgrims in search of comfort. The rest of the prologue is a description of the many pilgrims, from all the feudal estates and with varying degrees of moral propriety. In each of the estate groups we find pilgrims who are unwilling to fulfill the duties of their role in society and who do minor to major damage on the fabric of their society. The social satire of people not staying in place, of wandering (or to use a common medieval pun, becoming errant) is an overarching theme throughout the work.
Next, as we move into the tales proper, we can match the stories to the storyteller to find further elements of irony. The Prioress tells a wholly raw and anti-Semitic tale. The Knight struggles to stay on task in a conventional Romance of Thebes story (beginning with the classical story of Creon) and his style seems marked by PTSD from his many Crusades, The Wife follows her rhetorically brilliant prologue , which is an attack on medieval misogyny and the state of marriage, with a sentimental romance in which the rapist knight gets all that he can want.
In each of the ironic situations, as well as the plausible pairings of tale to teller, we can infer that Chaucer was hoping to alert his readers to their own and others need to seek reform for the good of the social order as well as their own spiritual health.
It is also a very funny work that would likely have even further secured Chaucer's reputation as England's supreme medieval poet.
Many scholars believe that Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales as a satire, which is a work of literature that exposes the flaws in society in order to teach a lesson about these flaws.
At this time in medieval history, society was split up into three levels called estates: the Church made up one estate, while the Nobles and the Peasants made up the other two. Each estate had a specific role to play, and each estate is well-represented in The Canterbury Tales.
Chaucer satirizes members of each estate by poking fun at their failures and their dishonesty; for example, the Friar, a member of the Church estate who is supposed to be pious and a good role model for his fellow citizens, is a total hypocrite, and the Wife of Bath, who claims to be a devout reader of Scripture, fails to live by the religious readings she pretends to adore and admire.
Many scholars belive that satire is always relevant, as there will always be corrupt persons in positions of power who are using their strength for personal gain. Satirists are responsible, now more than ever, to shine a light on these situations so that the public becomes aware of these abuses of power and more able to do something about them.
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