Chaucers Retraction in The Canterbury Tales Essay -- Canterbury Tales

Chaucers Retraction in The Canterbury TalesChaucers ability to characterize people from wholly walks of life in explicit detail, as is so wonderfully displayed in The Canterbury Tales, is just iodine factor that allowed him to be known as one of historys finest literary artists. At the curio of a career that would be considered by most artists as an extremely successful one, what could have caused Chaucer to apologize for every of the full treatment which defined literary success? In Chaucers Retraction, which appears at the end of The Canterbury Tales (Norton 311), Chaucer not only apologizes for several of his secular works, he also goes so far as to revoke them, and ask for forgiveness for such works which tended toward sin (313), as he puts it. Such an extreme action seems to be nighwhat irrational. Some believe that Chaucer, nearing the end of his earthly life, was preparing himself for Gods judgment in the afterlife. If, by means of his writings, he was guilty of some gra ve sin, which would hap him from the eternal bliss of heaven, such a retraction might be considered justifiable. Furthermore, the concept of being tormented in the depths of hell for all infinity could easily persuade any person, especially on his deathbed, to renounce all past actions, good or bad. Maybe it is better to be good than to be sorry, forever. While it is impossible to truly discern Chaucers reasoning, assuming him to be the actual author of this passage, a closer examination of the offending text, as well as a look at some of the neighborly and religious influences of the time period, might give us a twine as to why such a gifted poet would take this position.The prevailing theme of the pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales illustrates one obvious religious... ...xed with molten lead, system and other kinds of metal immense worms with poisonous teeth gnawed at some others were fastened on by one on stakes with eruptive thorns. The torturers tore them with their na ils, flogged them with dreadful scourges, and lacerated them in dreadful agonies The Monk of Eveshams Vision, 1197 (qtd. in Speed 4). When facing the end of ones life, the notion of spending all eternity in such a place would surely make however the most avid non-believer think twice. A true believer in Christianity might very well think that it is much better to be safe, than to be sorry forever.Works CitedChaucers Retraction. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Seventh Edition. Volume1. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York W.W.Norton and Company, Inc., 2000.Speed, Peter, ed. Those Who Prayed, An Anthology of mediaeval Sources. New York Italica Press, 1997.