The Pardoner and the Oxford Cleric in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Geofferey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales serves as a complex poetic satire of the late-Medieval English society he lived in. In the general prologue, Chaucer introduces all of the characters in the rest of the tale, accounting for their poor character traits as lightly as possible. However two characters in particular give examples of how Chaucer does this, the Pardoner and the Oxford Cleric satirically represent two different types of people in Chaucer's society.  

The Pardoner's position in the Church is to collect indulgences, that is money "donated" to the church to "forgive" sin. However, in Chaucer's presentation of the character shows him to be corrupt, greedy and guilty of simony. In his portrayal he accuses the Pardoner of being two-faced by saying, "he sew'd a holy relic on his cap; his wallet lay before him on his lap..." and also that "by his flatteries and prevarication made monkeys of the priest and congregation." Chaucer further makes vicious the Pardoner's character with the following lines:

"But best of all he sang an Offeratory,
For well he knew when that song was sung
He'd have to preach and tune his honey-tongue
And (well he could) win silver from the crowd.
That's why he sang so merrily and loud."

Simony and other misuses of ecclesiastical powers are major themes in Chaucer's work. Through the satirical illustrations of the Pardoner, the priests, the nun, the monk, the parson, and other characters, Chaucer makes [negative] political commentary on the issues of his time.

The Oxford Cleric is made fun of as well, but not to the degree of the Pardoner. The Cleric is said to "had found no preferment in the Church", indicating his lack of piety, but on the bright side, "he was too unworldly to make search for secular employment." And "whatever money from his friends he took he spent on learning or another book...", whereas the Pardoner took money from people for his own pleasure and in the Church's name. 

Even though the Cleric may be just as "in-virtuous" as the Pardoner, I would argue that the Pardoner's sin is magnified greater due to it's ecclesiastical corruption. The comparison of these character's, and others, demonstrates Chaucer's dissatisfaction with the Church in his time.

Morality over Chivalry in SGGK

SGGK, through the choices of Sir Gawain, demonstrates the difficulty of being both moral and chivalrous at the same time. As the wife of the King, who has provided him hospitality in his castle, seduces Gawain each morning he arises, Gawain chooses to keep to his moral principles rather than submit to his desires by being chivalrous. It would seem that morality supersedes chivalry.

However, it could be that morality only supersedes chivalry in this case because the chivalrous action is combined with the decision to submit to immoral pleasure. In other words, Gawain could be rejecting the queen's advances due to the knowledge that he would be controlled by his own immoral desire.

Gawain chooses to be chivalrous over wholly moral in the decision of allowing the interactions with the queen to go as far as they did, even to the point of kissing. He always had the option of "unchivalrously" of not allowing the queen's presence to avoid any direction of immoral conduct, but Gawain chooses to interact with her. Perhaps he did this because he knew that he could control his desire and still act chivalrously, without crossing any moral boundaries all at the same time.

Fitt I of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or as I will abbreviate for the sake of abbreviation, SGGK, begins by summarising the history of Britain, beginning as early as the beginnings of Rome from the Trojan War and Romulus. The poet writes of the great men of Britain, including King Arthur, whence the story of SGGK takes place: his court in Camelot around the Round Table.

After this background, the story begins at Christmastime in Camelot, where Arthur, Genevieve, and their court celebrate by feasting. A large mysterious man clad in green appears and asks someone to dual him. No one in the court accepts, and the green knight questions the fortitude of the knights of the Round Table. Arthur then accepts the dual, but when interrupted by his frail cousin, Gawain, who takes on the dual himself. The green knight demands that after the dual, Gawain must find him where he lives. Gawain accepts and the green knight exposes his neck as Gawain beheads him with an axe. The bleeding head of the green knight. The green knight's body walks to the head, picks it up, and reminds Gawain of their deal. With head in arm, the green knight rode off.

Arthur, unmoved by the odd events, continued the feasting and celebration in his court.

As far as meter goes in the story, I noticed that [roughly] every 20 lines, the poems flow would be broken by four lines of iambic hexameter. These four lines seemed to serve as transitional lines in the poem, moving the story from one event to another.

Creative Writing Assignment on Canto XVII

Geryon landed with a mighty sound, trembling the underearth,

Cautiously, yet, as to not disturb the peace of his riders’

Flight across hell’s rings. Virgil, still unmoved, that man of girth,

Turned to me with sweet consideration, ignorant fellow flyers

Were we, watching that wretched beast at once depart.

Upon the sight of his redirection, it soon occurred to me that I admire

The newfound grace and beauty within his art

He mastered of sky and earth. He seemed to me now

Like a sweet dove, much like Florence’s common part

Where among pigeons swarm and beat their wings so foul:

A lonely dove, pure and white, stained not with city’s grime,

 Unnoticed in the busy noise and bustling crowd.

True and righteous beauty ignored is true crime

When concealed dark only by many others so appalling.

But perhaps that silent injustice makes sublime

What beauty already exists without calling.

And so Geryon, that creature I had once feared

Now seemed magnificently swift, and when falling

Reminded me of such innocent fowl reared

So rarely amongst the earth’s population,

Geryon was that creature’s appearance for now I cared.

“What beauty may lay among this evil desolation?”

Virgil to me answered, “In truth lies beauty, and in truth 

Rests sweet justice, by God’s hand upon his belovèd creation.”

Close Encounters with Ugolino and the Bottom of Hell

Why do we find so much imagery of eating in Cantos XXXII through XXXIV?

Here, in the pit of hell, we find the worst of sinners. The others were even too righteous to coexist with these foul creatures, having committed acts of satanic value. Evil birthing such lifelessness that fire itself could not eternal nor momentarily consume, but only a frozen wasteland of still and upside-down monsters. The screams and cries of anguish cease, reason and speech are abandoned due to their uselessness.

This is where Dante comes upon the figure Count Ugolino. Ugolino describes himself italian nobility in Pisa. Ugolino was born a Ghibelline, but soon joined the Guelf party as a means of obtaining more political power in Pisa. However he was exiled in his first attempt and later joined with Ruggieri. Both planned to seize power in Pisa, but as soon as their plan began working, according to Ugolino, Ruggieri betrayed him, causing his imprisonment and death. Historically, Ugolino was known to have betrayed Ruggieri first, but failed in imprisoning him as Ugolino had been. In prison, along with both his children (and supposedly grandchildren as well), they were locked in and the key thrown into a river, leaving them to starve. Accounts speak of Ugolino cannibalising his children in order to extend his own life further.

When Dante first comes upon Ugolino, he finds the shade gnawing on the brain of another, both encased waist-up in ice. The other shade he feeds on Dante discovers to be his betrayer, Ruggieri. The cannibalism Dante witnesses not only accounts for that he commits in prison, but also speaks to his sins in his political career as well. Ugolino, used what political power he had to climb over other people, thriving off of their demise, much like the idea of cannibalism.

Cannibalism exists in the centre of hell as the most evil of sins in Dante's hierarchy due to cannibalism's application to all three of Dante's denominations of sins. Dante categorises sins into three distinct sets: sins of incontinence, sins of fraud, and sins of violence. Cannibalism is a sin of violence in that it involves the murder of an individual and/or the mutilation of their body. It also is a sin of fraud in that it takes something that should be living and admired as the image of God and distorts it into something as common as food. Finally, cannibalism falls under the category of incontinence in that it is an unnatural way of satiating something as common as hunger.

Discussion Question on Canto XXVI

Why does Dante create this fantastic ending to the life of Ulysses given that so much material is available for him to use in his encounter with the sinner?

Dante's interactions with Ulysses are no different than that with other ancient (read classical) authors and characters, namely Virgil, Aeneas, and Dido. Of course Dante means to demonstrate his appreciation for these people in his Comedy by mentioning them, but they serve more greatly than Dante serves them in the Inferno. Ulysses, no differently, is being used in Dante's work to prove a point. 

In the case of Ulysses, Dante completely reinvents the story of the Odyssey. In the Comedy, Ulysses speaks of how, after returning from sea after many years, went out sailing again, "longing for experience of the world, of human vices and virtue" (26.94-5). He began pursuing land beyond the Atlantic, which during these times, presumably was considered not within human capability, and consequently, drowns on his voyage. Of course none of which never happened, at least not in the Odyssey. Once again, as Dante continues the story (or perhaps fate) of Virgil among other characters, he does so with Ulysses.

There is, however, quite precision behind Dante's retelling of the Odyssey. Had Ulysses went out to see and did all these things-humans-appreciated, without any credit to God, and still maintained the title of 'ideal hero', Dante would have to place Ulysses in heaven. Therefore, Dante makes death the obvious consequence for Ulysses's choice of 'earthly' pursuits.