Canterbury Tales :: essays research papers

The Canterbury humbugs is a collection of accounts about a journey pilgrims made to and from the Canterbury Cathedral, composed by British writer Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 1300s. Chaucer greatly increased the prestige of English as a literary language and extended the swerve of its poetic vocabulary and meters (Encarta 1). In the tales, the host offers a contest to the pilgrims which requiresthem to classify four stories during their trip . Chaucer ingeniously integrates the episodes with one another and also resplendently describes the personality, behavior, and general way of life of a variety of aspects of society in the Medieval Ages. The Canterbury Tales consists of twenty-four tales, two of which are unfinished. One of these unfinished accounts is the Tale of Sir Thopas.The Tale of Sir Thopas begins with the narrator describing a fair and gallant knight who is from the farthermost country of Flanders. It continues on characterizing this knight, Sir Thopas, as a handsom e man who was experient at hunting, horse riding, wrestling, and archery. All of the woman of the land longed for him, but Sir Thopas desert all of them. Then one day, riding through the forest, the knight hears gorgeous birds singing songs of love. Upon hearing this, Sir Thopas hurries to ride away because his heart is sore as there is no woman in the world to his make. The knight because recalls a dream he had where his darling would be an elf-queen. He continue riding until he found a secret place called the lay of Faery. There he met a great goliath whose name was Sir Oliphant. The giant threatened Sir Thopas to leave the land where the Queen of Faery resides or he would be killed. After hearing this Sir Thopas answered that when he has his armor both of them would bout to the death. This scene is an example of howChaucer Gives the Tale of Sir Thopas a hilarious send-up as conflicting to other more serious tales that indirectly disparage English publications (Payne 33). Sir Thopas returned to his kingdom where he prepared himself for his battle against the giant. His merry men cheered him with tales of grey-headed romances, they brought him sweet wine, a royal spicery of ginger bread, and fine linen paper to cover himself. Then he dressed himself in ornate armor. He had a spear of fine cypress wood, a saddle of rewel bone, and a shield of solid gold.