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Italo Esteves Coutinho

2016041611
Poetry in English

Seeing poetry as located very much in a particular place and time, it goes without saying that it
engages in affirmatory and contestatory ways with large questions of history, society and customs. While
Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ stands as a historical introduction to the life and times of the late
Middle Ages, his work can also be regarded as politically engaged.

The author’s sheer choice of a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury as a
narrative framework device is not fortuitous. By resorting to a framing in which characters of varied rank,
education and holiness tell their stories, Chaucer unifies such heterogeneous crusaders by a shared
religious objective at a time when the Catholic Church was in the midst of the Western Schism. Not only
does such a storytelling technique draw the addressee’s attention to religion, but it also serves as criticism
against the clergy. Indeed, out of all the clergymen in the tales, the Pardoner and the Summoner, whose
roles apply the Church's secular power, are both portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and abusive. The
Parson, on the other hand, stands as a beacon of patience as he was “many a times tested by adversity”
and managed to remain “always patient” (466 – 467). By painting the cleric in such a positive light,
Chaucer brings to the foreground all the virtues ‘those who pray’ lack. His unattachment to Earthly goods,
for instance, alludes to the avarice of the medieval Church: “to him little meant sufficiency” (472). Unlike
his fellow clergymen, The Parson is of humbling character and is described as identifying with those in
need, as “not harsh to weak souls in temptation” (498).

As regards ‘those who work’, that is, the likes of the commoners and peasantry, Chaucer gives the
reader a glimpse into the life of The Physician, who is portrayed in the Tales as a nonbeliever who “gave
but little heed to the Holy Writ” (420). Practitioner of a liberal profession, The Physician pursues his
learning for financial gains and the poet denounces the evils of his financial duplicity by means of a subtle
satire evidenced through his cunning partnership with the druggists, a true “game of mutual aid, with each
one winning” (415). Chaucer goes on to wryly observe that the costly treatments prescribed by him might
even include gold: “… gold is a cordial, as physicians hold / and so he had a special love for gold”. In a
morality play, The Parson is the embodiment of vices such as Avarice and Pride.

Following that further, the character of The Wife of Bath represents the personification of Lust,
who, through an allegorical confession, admits to her sins and wrongdoings. Chaucer contradictorily
paints her as conforming to a number of antimarriage – “Five men in turn had taken her to wife” (441) –
and misogynistic stereotypes – “Omitting her youthful company” (442) –, a device which here stresses
the rules imposed by Christian authorities concerning womanly behaviour. The Skipper, a tanned figure
who lived by the sea, unlike the Wife of Bath, comes from humble beginnings. His social standing is
ironized in a most Chaucerian fashion when we learn that although “he was a true good fellow” (385), he
“many a time had tapped a wine cask mellow” (386). It thus seems reasonable to posit that the social
fabric of Chaucer’s day – comprising corruption, greed, relationships out of wedlock and even theft – is
mirrored in our day and age.

The series of portraits of Chaucer's pilgrims is a sociologically critical picture of the wide range
of types and occupations of people in XIV century England. The focus on people of different jobs, status
and wealth as well as on their strengths and weaknesses indicates just how far the scope of Chaucer's
poetic masterpiece is concerned with human society, even though the reason for the people to be
assembled as a group is for a pilgrimage.

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