The Sprout In Paradox

Chaucer played an important role in the transition period from medieval literature to modern literature. He incorporated French, Italian, and Latin literary traditions into English literature and founded English literature tradition. His poem achievements were mainly reflected in his masterpiece Canterbury Tales. The long poem with its open attitude and realism is a sprout of modern literature. The main purpose of this thesis is to make clear the unique nature of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It's an undeniable fact that contemporary Italian humanism had great influence on Chaucer. At the same time Chaucer is a feudal squire after all, he was trying to avoid the conflicts between his works and court nobles. As a pious Christian, his works show his meditation over the relation between God and human, between world life and eternal life. The combination of these factors makes Canterbury Tales show duality.The first chapter of this thesis will give a detailed description of Chaucer's time environment and life experience. The second chapter is to analyze Canterbury Tales themes from 3 aspects as below: faith; women; relations between two sexes. The third chapter will discuss its artistic characteristics from angles of narrative frames and characters.