because he spends all his money on books. He represents the spirit of learning. The Shipman represents many of his countrymen, other sailors, including pirates, who were making a name for England as a powerful maritime nation. o They each tell a story suitable for their class, different genres. The Knight a romance, the Miller a fabliau, the Prioress a religious legend. Each story has its own prologue and epilogue. There are numerous interruptions, characterised by the pilgrims' own actions. The whole tales are a broad panorama of human nature including everything that is noble and base (the opposite of noble). · GC was in a transitional stage into the Renaissance. There is humanity and humanism in his works and it is why he has sympathy for people.
Early Roman romances were in French. Later on they were written in Middle English. Alliteration gradually disappeared, rhyme appears for the first time in English poetry. The fatalistic outlook is gradually replaced by a sense of brightness and joy, it is the first sign of the changes to come. Also, for the first time, some elements of human psychology can be seen. As the cities grew and more citizens became more educated, new genres appeared the fable and the (fablio) fabliau(x). Fables are short stories with animals for characters and usually a moral at the end. The most famous fable-writer Aesop. Fabliaux a comic, often has excessive sexual and scatological obscenity. Burghers, cuckolding (a cuckold a man who's wife cheated on him).
on Celtic legends). Importance of the church during the Middle Ages (5th c to 15th c). Three languages used in England: French, English and Latin. Main literary genres: (1) chivalric romance, (2) the fabliau (a comic, often anonymous tale that is characterised by an excess of sexual and other types of obscenity) and (3) literature on religious topics – either moralistic (teach right from wrong) or ecclesiastical (biblical subject). Middle ages – English becomes a literary language
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