Chaucer's
poems reveal much about the English medieval period.
First, the hegemony of
Christianity in Europe grounds many of the assumptions in his texts. Belief in an afterlife of
punishment or reward is implied not only in how characters are judged but in how they approach
choices in this world.
The Middle Ages fostered a rich philosophical
tradition, synthesizing the ancients with Christian writers such as Boethius, Augustine, and
Aquinas. Chaucer's own poetry is especially steeped in Boethius, whose
Consolation Chaucer translated into English. The notion of human temporal
understanding versus divine atemporal understanding is prevalent in "" especiallywhere
the problem of evil is everywhere confronted.
Especially in
, the notion of the feudal estates is important. The wide diversity of
human types as well as the restlessness in society for upward movement creates tension that
feudal societies sought to suppress. The pilgrims in this work mostly seek to evade the ideals
of the feudal society and escape the confines of the estate into which they are placed. The poem
works by creating ironic portraits of these failings.
Another quality one
finds in Medieval literature is a strong desire to catalog and synthesize human knowledge.
Chaucer's own work seems a catalog of the wide variety of genres written during the period. From
lofty poems like Troilus and Creseyda, to The Canterbury
Tales dynamic society, to Legend of Good Women's hagiography,
Chaucer's texts embody the curiosity, sophistication, and delight in language that mark this
era.
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