Canterbury Tales
The personalities, values, and behaviors of characters in a literary work can provide interesting insights into the life of the times when the work was written. Hence The Canterbury Tales can be used as a source of information on life in England in the late 1300s.
Using the three characters in The Canterbury Tales who have been assigned for class as your primary source (Miller, Wife of Bath, and Pardoner), write a critical research essay in which you identify, illustrate, and explain at least three aspects of life in the late 1300s as manifested through these characters in The Canterbury Tales. Aspects of life may include, but are not necessarily limited to, the type of people one meets, attitudes toward religion, marriage, human relationships, women, love. In The Canterbury Tales, the main sources of your information will come from the following: “The General Prologue,” the tales told by the Miller, the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner as well as the specific “Prologue” as assigned that introduces each of these characters who, of course, represent people from the time period.
As you identify, illustrate, and explain each aspect of life you have selected as stated in your one-sentence thesis, use the critics to help you further support each point you are making after you first cite The Canterbury Tales for every point and example you offer.
Remember you need to address three aspects of life as presented in The Canterbury Tales by the characters and their tales.
Remember the focus of the paper is The Canterbury Tales and what you glean from the characters as presented in its pages. This is not a history or a sociology paper.
Include answers to the following questions/areas in your paper:
1. Identify the three specific areas as represented by the characters.
2. Explain how the character(s) and the specific tale(s) offer insights into the
area of life you are writing about as far as the life of the times is concerned.
3. Offer observations about what each of the areas embodied in each of the character say about the nature of life in the late Middle Ages.
Length: an essay of 6 to 8 pages.
Format: Standard MLA format only. No cover sheet.
Formal Outline: required; topic outline format.
Minimum number of sources: 5, including the e-text edition of The Canterbury Tales.
Critical sources must be academic, scholarly articles. See list of possible sources.
Web sites such as Wikipedia, Cliffs Notes, Pink Monkey, Grade Saver, on-line papers, other students papers are NOT acceptable. No web sites with the text of The Canterbury Tales except your e-book..
Remember, the meaning of “Works Cited” is that each of the works is cited in the text of your
paper.
Lots of citations, but no more than 4 short quotes (3 lines or less) from The Canterbury Tales.
Every body paragraph needs citations to both the CT and the critics.
No set-off quotes. All other references to The Canterbury Tales as well as all material from the
critics must be in your own words.
Follow MLA format for in-text quotations of poetry, if you use them. Quotations are not
required.
Use the character analysis handout as a guide to examining each of the characters.
**Support each of your points first with citations to The Canterbury Tales and then to the
critics. Every point you make should do this.
Every paragraph except the first, introductory paragraph (the thesis) and the final paragraph must include citations to both the text of The Canterbury Tales and the critics.
Literary papers are written in the third person and in the present tense.
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