The Canterbury Tales Essay

This Study Guide consists of approximately 205 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Canterbury Tales.

The Canterbury Tales Essay

This Study Guide consists of approximately 205 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Canterbury Tales.
This section contains 4,619 words
(approx. 12 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Canterbury Tales Study Guide

In the following essay, Lenaghan examines the "General Prologue" as a historical document, asserting that it offers "a richer sense of a civil servant's values than the usual documents afford."

The "General Prologue" is often called a picture of its age and, frequently in the next breath, a satire. In English Lit. this usually draws a stern lecture about confusing the distinction between literature and history, but in this essay, unobserved by my sophomores, I propose to talk about the "General Prologue" as a picture of its age and then, tentatively, about some uses such history might be put to by historians and literary students.

The "General Prologue" has an obvious historical interest as a series of discrete bits of information about dress, customs, etc.; but if it is to be considered as a more general historical formulation, there is a question of coherence. Is Chaucer's fictional...

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This section contains 4,619 words
(approx. 12 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Canterbury Tales Study Guide
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The Canterbury Tales from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.