Knight in Shinning Armour in Chaucers The Canterbury Tales Essay examp

The Knight in Shinning Armour in Chaucers The Canterbury Tales Chaucers The Canterbury Tales offers the reader an insight into our past, providing vivid glimpses into the 14th centurys well-disposed structure, and into the personalities, lives, and ethics of twenty-eight members of that society drawn together to travel on a pilgr stunt woman. The General Prologue to the Tales deals primarily with introducing these people to us, providing physical descriptions and character outlines of to the highest degree each pilgrim it is a tribute to Chaucers skill that his descriptions (as filtered through the neurotically dexterous narrator) succeeds in creating such lively characters out of what are, essential, two-dimensional stereotypes from his era. Chaucer manages to create wet characters through multiple means, each pilgrim receiving special detail in unlike areas. Take, for instance, the first of the pilgrims The Knight. The knight has always been a romantic, heroi c figure, and in this congregation of pilgrims, is the highest placed member on the social stepladder. Chaucer does the knight - and our preconceptions of him - justice, painting an image of a strong, valiant, and noble figure. Oddly enough (or perhaps, wisely), very little assistance is given to his physical detail, concentrating more on the knights activities and demeanour. In fact, the only lines that put up a direct physical description of the knight are that for tto tellen you of his array,His hors were goode, but he was nat gay.Of fustiaan he wered a gipoun,Al bismottered with his haubergeoun, (73-76) Therefore, we know he has a good horse (a sure sign of wealth), and that he avoids flashy, brazen-faced clothing (unlike his son the squ... ...ion of which has obviously caused the knight to go on a pilgrimage. Something is obviously bothering the knight, else he would not feel the need to atone for his actions. alone these small flaws only make him that much more of a compassionate figure, and can only serve to further draw the reader into the knights advance tale. So, while the knight may be besmirched, and troubled, and no longer gleam, he still, in Chaucers, the narrators, and most readers view, remains the Knight in shinning armour.Works ConsultedGeoffrey Chaucer. Twaynes English Authors Series, Ed. Sylvia Bowman, New York Twayne Publishers, 1964. Modern deprecative Views Geoffrey Chaucer, Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishers, 1985. Pearsall, Derek. The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer. Blackwell Critical Biographies. Ed. Claude Rawson. Oxford Blackwell Publishers, 1992.