User:JosebaAbaitua/sandbox/References/DHum2021/SAN ATILANO CAMPILLO, Iván

Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales: A Faithful Reflection of England's Medival Society and Customs
=== Extract obtained from academic paper by Iván San Atilano for Sociocultural History of Arts through Literature (2019-2020) ===

Chaucer’s main intention in The Canterbury Tales was not only to entertain the readers, but also to write a reliable story which could properly reflect how English society behaved, which demonstrated a large social knowledge. Consequently, realism is one of the most important elements in the story to appropriately portrait 14th century England. The importance that characters receive from the very beginning of The Canterbury Tales is a faithful element that proves the realism that Chaucer tried to obtain in the story; “Chaucer starts his story with the General Prologue in order to describe characters who will tell the stories; therefore, it is clear that the structure will depend on the characters rather than a general theme or moral”. Moreover, even if the work is a poem written in middle English, Chaucer did not focus on obtaining a solid rhyme. Many of the lines in the poem are non-metrical, which shows how he concentrated in having appropriate descriptions rather than metricity. These dutiful descriptions do nothing but proof Chaucer’s knowledge about society, social behaviours and habits. Furthermore, the setting used throughout the story also contributes to “improve authenticity in the tales and in their tellers”. In fact, due to the high grade of religiosity during English medieval times, pilgrimage resulted to be the perfect method so as to include characters from different social levels and with different and contrastive customs.

Regarding religion, forms of externalizing Christian beliefs became popular, pilgrimages being an example of this kind of practices. In Europe, Canterbury in England, Saint James in Spain, and Rome in Italy were some of the most popular ones. Pilgrimaging was a practice that made many different social groups come together with the same religious objective; thus, it was the perfect form of portraying the Middle Ages’ English society. Chaucer used pilgrimage as a way of faithfully characterize existing social statements so as to provide the reader with a reflection of English Middle Age society aspects.

Privacy can also be an important element to consider, as pilgrims try to keep secrets that finally help to really show how they are. Interestingly, as The Canterbury Tales show, medieval ages made it difficult for people to keep secrets, as the society of this time is described as rather “communal at every level”. Practices of privacy were even more reduced in urban areas like London, which started to be one of the most crowded cities in Europe and where almost everybody in the city could control one’s neighbours.

Apart from that, political or even more importantly, religious structures made it difficult for population to be self-determined; that is, these structures contributed to the difficulty of social self-determination. As indicated, “If citizens are to maintain their dignity and standing in society, they must hide their transgressions, keep their secrets, and avoid withdrawing”. This is also reflected in both the Prologue and some of the tails of The Canterbury Tales, in which character’s actions are directly influenced by both religion and their Christian beliefs.

It is also important to mention the relevance of Chaucer’s writing in English. During the English Middle Ages, French became the official language for diplomacy and even for art together with Italian and Latin. Little had been written in English since the start of these times as English was mostly orally used among lower statements’ citizens. However, Chaucer saw English as a language of his country. In fact, by writing in English, he transformed the language and marked its path towards its globalisation.

Additional webpage bibliography
For further bibliography related to the topic but not cited in the text before, check any of the following webpages:


 * Geoffrey Chaucer in [ Wikipedia] and [ Wikidata]
 * Geoffrey Chaucer main webpage in Harvard University [Harvard Chaucer]
 * The Canterbury Tales in [ Wikipedia] and [ Wikidata]
 * The Canterbury Tales online and translated (offered for free by Harvard University) [Harvard The Canterbury Tales]
 * The Canterbury Tales analysis (offered for free by Britannica) [Britannica Analysis]