Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales are timeless in the sense that more than 600 years have passed since their creation and their literary rewards are still being sown. A great author seems to rise above time when they have created a masterpiece; their work does not feel the effects of age. Time continues on and the bulk of the work remains unabashed. Certain aspects fade as the world changes, however, literary value is often enhanced. Chaucer did not write The Canterbury Tales strictly to comment on the Medieval times. The characters that he has infused with so much vitality and depth existed during this time where they occupied certain social roles, but that which makes them human also allows for their eternal existence as individuals. Chaucer’s beautiful, flowing words and his unique character insight were great innovations relatively unattempted before his time and unmatched since. The fact that nothing like The Canterbury Tales has since come out of modern literature does not detract from its brilliance; it simply means modern literature has failed to match Chaucer’s abilities in capturing the true essence of individuality and as a poet. That which has established The Canterbury Tales as the cornerstone of
Chaucer was himself a member of several orders of society during his life. Possibly as a result he wished to address certain issues about each. What he actually has to say takes a backseat to what it is that he says and how he says it. The words he used and the way he used them are infinitely more important than the ideas he wished to convey. The Canterbury Tales are a groundbreaking work by a man who refused to be held down by the constraints of time. He was a brilliant inventor who built a time machine and took it into the future. It is ironic that his endeavors had little or nothing to do with science. Geoffrey Chaucer was a poet and not a scientist. This becomes obvious when The Canterbury Tales are read and come to life before the reader’s eyes and with a realism unparalleled by nearly any work of modern literature. Images conjured up in the brain appear more beautiful than their worldly counterpart. Perhaps Chaucer was an advocate of Plato’s “cave theory.” Everything has an ideal form present somewhere other than this world and human knowledge and recognition is based on an innate picture of this ideal form. Objects on earth are vague reflections of their ideal selves. Chaucer’s words appear to rival even their ideal selves. What would make this image more beautiful: “When in April the sweet showers fall And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all The veins are bathed in liquor of such power As brings about the engendering of the flower, When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath Exhales an air in every grove and heath Upon tender shoots . . .?”
Chaucer’s obsession is with the individual. He writes about nearly every class of Medieval society minus the highest and lowest orders. Class structure is not his concern, nor is he concerned with problems within a certain class. He wishes to address individuals from many facets of life and relate them back to their stereotypical
Example Essays Home
