SCRIBBLE
Satire
in the Canterbury Tales by Divya Balain
Geoffrey Chaucer was born around 1343 AD and was from a successful merchant family - this wealth and connection allowed him the education to read and write. Chaucer did not write as a profession, instead writing for pleasure/amusement. The Canterbury Tales is viewed as his most influential piece of work and is a collection of stories told by a series of pilgrims, the pilgrimage itself (to Canterbury cathedral) acts as a framing device to allow the stories to be told, as they participate in a storytelling competition. The ‘General Prologue’ introduces some of the pilgrims, while the interweaved ‘links’ act to fluidly join the pilgrim’s stories together. The frame of the pilgrimage allows Chaucer to successfully satirise society as a whole, as the pilgrims come from all parts of society. This idea of satire is also supported by the lack of detail of the journey itself – Chaucer focuses chiefly on the stories and the pilgrims themselves, thus The Canterbury Tales gives an insight into society rather than exploring the nature of a pilgrimage.
Reeve (carpenter) is shown to not appreciate the way his profession was portrayed and uses his story to mockingly portray a miller. As well as exploring characters from many backgrounds, Chaucer’s use of English, despite the upper-class speaking French, and Latin being the language of the Church meant his writing was accessible and allowed him to aid the development of English as a literary language. This decision is also seen to be influenced by the Italian writers, who wrote in their native Italian language, however by doing this Chaucer made his work more accessible linguistically. This suggests further that Chaucer’s aim was satire of society as a whole, as the writing is not something that could only be read and therefore enjoyed by the upper classes. Satire is seen as ‘holding a mirror up to society’, using irony, sarcasm and humour to do this. John Bullitt states that “In its most serious function, satire is a mediator between two perceptions – the unillusioned perception of man as he actually is, and the ideal perception, or vision, of man as he ought to be”, thus through using satire Chaucer comedically gives an insight into the interactions, pitfalls, and absurdity of society at the time. Satire is found throughout The Canterbury Tales, as Chaucer explores the Church, nobility, peasantry, relationships, gender, etc. Through the roles of the different pilgrims, Chaucer demonstrates how they fail to fulfil their duties and thus mocks their societal interactions. One key idea
The Canterbury Tales’ frame draws on Italian Literature, as Boccaccio’s The Decameron uses a similar idea of ten nobles fleeing the Black Death, each telling a different story on this journey. Chaucer modifies this to allow a rounded satire of society, as Chaucer’s storytellers are not nobility. Moreover the interaction between the different pilgrims through their story provides another layer of comedy, as they demonstrate interactions and differences between classes. For example, after the Miller’s Tale, the
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