Chaucer Essay - 961 Words

A person can almost wholly learn the history of the world though literature that has been written. This is because the people and times have such a great influence on the writers and their work. Authors did not simply grab ideas from the sky. These ideas came from their mind; they wrote about what they knew. And what they knew is what surrounds them, whether it be war, peace, or a time of transition. In the early centuries, religion ruled the land and people. The first rulers came about from the idea that God or some other Supreme Being from up above sent forth these people to rule over the land. Literature from these times was highly influenced by religion. Almost every piece of work up until the 18th century contains some kind of†¦show more content†¦A pilgrimage is a very sacred aspect of religion. It is an act of religious devotion, where a person or groups of people travel to a holy site in honor of a religious figure (Quinn 76). Almost every literary work ever produced at the time that Chaucer lived had religious undertones. This was because of the simple fact that quot;the church was the fountain of literacy and sole purveyor of what education there was during these centuriesquot;(Vinson 8). The church was the law. If someone went against what the Bible said, then you went against the government. One might assume that if the Bible was the law, then the government would be holy, good, and obey what it preaches, but Chaucer saw, from inside the palace walls, that this assumption was wrong. Chaucer saw corruption and greed. He displayed this in his story for everyone to see. Of all the pilgrims on the pilgrimage, a third of them were associated with the church in some way. He uses these characters to show how corrupt the church had become. The monk in particular is described as man who quot;didnt give a plucked hen for that text which says that hunters are not holy men, and that a monk, when he is heedless of duty, is like a fish out of waterquot;(Chaucer 11). Chaucer is saying that the monk would rather hunt than pray, which is odd for a man of the cloth and especially for one on a religiousShow MoreRelatedEssay on Geoffrey Chaucer778 Words   |  4 PagesGeoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer was a poet, a writer, and of course a diplomat. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in the early hours of 1340s to John Chaucer, a vintner and assistant to the kings butler. As a boy, he was a leaf to the Countess of Ulster. (Lombardi) Chaucer was the most famous for writing his unfinished Canterbury tales. (Geoffrey Chaucer) He was born in London, only problem is, the exact date and place are unknown. 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