Chaucer And The Roman Catholic Church - 1994 Words

Chaucer and the Roman Catholic Church In the years of the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church reigned. It not only influenced people s lives, but in some ways led them. From what they believed, how they treated women, how they worked, and how they prayed, the Roman Catholic Church obviously had a large influence. We know this today by simply reading the reading the literature from that period, whether it is simple poems like Beowulf or Dream of the Rood, or bigger stories such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. These stories are riddled with Catholic teachings and mentions, whether they re brought up in a good light, or a negative one. Oddly enough, we rarely see the latter. One of the few stories that do show Roman Catholic†¦show more content†¦As the Wife explains, she used her sexual power to dominate her husbands. In an essay put out by Portland state University, it says that In the Middle Ages, many members of the Church began to see sex and lust as a sin created by The Fall. This is further shown in Scripture itself in many places, one of them being 2 Corinthians 12:21: I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged. 2 Corinthians 12:21 Another, shorter verse, would be Ephesians 5: 3: But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God s holy people. Ephesians 5:3 The Wife of Bath, though she was of the Roman Catholic Church herself, went against this. Her argument in justifying herself is simply this: there are plenty of people in the Bible that used their sexual power to dominate others, such as David, Solomon, and many others. If they could do it, why couldn t she? Giving such an argument, she twists the very Scripture that the Church teaches. The question then is, if she was in the Catholic Church, why was she allowed to continue with her sexual dealings? With this character, Chaucer hints at a small corruption in the Church, that there were people who as members of it, were allowed to live in horrid sinsShow MoreRelatedEssay on Chaucers The Canterbury Tales927 Words   |  4 PagesChaucers The Canterbury Tales In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer comments on moral corruption within the Roman Catholic Church. He criticizes many high-ranking members of the Church and describes a lack of morality in medieval society; yet in the â€Å"Retraction,† Chaucer recants much of his work and pledges to be true to Christianity. Seemingly opposite views exist within the â€Å"Retraction† and The Canterbury Tales. However, this contradiction does not weaken Chaucer’s social commentary.Read MoreChaucer s Candide And Shakespeare s Macbeth1317 Words   |  6 PagesVoltaire’s’ Candide and Shakespeare’s Macbeth. 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Chaucer uses an abundance of sarcasm, as opposed to seriousness, to describeRead MoreEssay on The Age of Chaucer567 Words   |  3 PagesWhen we trace the Age of Chaucer we will find that it is full of considerable number of religious, social and political events that profoundly influenced Chaucer himself and induced him to produce great masterpieces of Arts that contributed to English language at that time. Thus, it is very important to discuss the periods that England, at that time, went through and their intimate relations with the Age of Chaucer in order to understand fully the background of this age. Great Britain is dividedRead MoreEssay about Geoffrey Chaucer Used Satire in His Tales657 Words   |  3 Pages To begin, back in the days on Geoffrey Chaucer, religion was ruled by one and only one church, the Roman Catholic Church. He never really agreed with the ways of the church so he wrote a series of tales making fun of the people of England and the ways of the church. Even though he was purposely making fun of the church, he had to be careful of the way he said some things. With some of the characters he creates, Chaucer finds himself apologizing in advance for what he is about toRead MoreThe Friar s A Friar1152 Words   |  5 PagesBritish Literature 27 October 2015 The Friar A friar is a simple man whose job was to beg from the poor and give to the Roman Catholic Church. The friar takes as much as one would need to live a humble life and offers the rest for the better of the church and poor. In the Roman Catholic Church a friar is considered a monk, and therefore expected to be fair and reserved. However, Chaucer describes the friar, or Hubert, in a sarcastic tone exposing his corrupt ways to only profiting himself from the poorRead MoreCharacter Analysis Of The Pardoner1878 Words   |  8 PagesTo begin, the Pardoner is a character found in the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the fourteenth century. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories in which a group of thirty pilgrims on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, England, to visit an English Saint Thomas Beckett, archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in his Cathedral in 1170. The Canterbury Tales begins with â€Å"The General Prologue† where the narrator describes the physical characteristics and personality of