The different types of human relationship in Chaucer's "Canterbury tales"

Abstract

Geoffrey Chaucer and the members of his audience are as deeply involved in his work as any of his dramatis personae Chaucer's thought is marked by several characteristics: he is fundamentally moral; his attitude towards philosophy and science is in harmony with the beliefs of the Middle Ages; he assigns to "Auctoritee" and "Experience" a very elevated place in his works. He discovered, however, that morality and authority are not always compatible with experience. In his attempt at integrating these qualities, he emerged as a successful artist of genius. Chaucer's work appears to be a compact of incongruous elements lives of saints are juxtaposed with stories of mythological figures; satirical sketches and idealized descriptions alternate in a portrait gallery of mediaeval people; philosophical discussions are inserted in the moat sensual and sometimes immoral narratives; his actors are motivated by passionate love as well as by deliberate revenge. It is these components that make his works and characters so attractive. His audience could discover in them some quality of their own nature and could sympathise with one or other of their moods. In these flagrant inconsistencies, Chaucer is a product of his own times.