Wildness In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
The values put forth by Henry David Thoreau in his essay "Walking" are shown in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and in particular The Oxford Cleric's tale. The idea that only wildness is attractive to readers and is evident in the clerics tale because it has things as far away from dull as possible happening. Love, trust, deception, and a happy ending all contribute to an anything but dull tale which in fact proves Thoreau's ideal. In particular the strained relationship between the two main characters causes a wildness to occur and grab the reader in a way that dull or plainness simply can't. In The Clerics Tale, Walter, the main character, tests his wife's devotion to him by asking that she let him have their children killed as
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He doesn't want to wed at all but as his subjects beg him too he finds himself realizing it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, so he decides to ask the most beautiful lady he's ever seen to marry him. The scandalous or wild part about it? It was a peasant! Here was this beloved ruler who was a happy bachelor for many years, about to take a wife from the lowest class of people. This shows that Chaucer really had a handle on what people would view as "in the box thinking" and takes measures to avoid this kinda of ideals. This kind of creativity captivates readers more so than reading about every day life with no strife could. More on that example, men wanting to remain bachelors isn't a new topic. Finally deciding to settle down isn't new either, but Chaucer put a new spin on it when he had the Marquis marry someone far below his class. Lastly Chaucer makes his free and wild thinking become evident when at the end of the Cleric's tale he has the cleric say that this whole tale was to teach a lesson about how man should trust in God and understand God won't test man more than he can handle. This can't exactly be consider uncivilized because the whole tale had a sense of civility, but it can be considered wild because it shows just how much devotion God expects from man. This isn't a bad thing however because Walter loves Griselda very much and she, he; thus indicating that God only tests us because he loves us and he wants us to prove our
He doesn't want to wed at all but as his subjects beg him too he finds himself realizing it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, so he decides to ask the most beautiful lady he's ever seen to marry him. The scandalous or wild part about it? It was a peasant! Here was this beloved ruler who was a happy bachelor for many years, about to take a wife from the lowest class of people. This shows that Chaucer really had a handle on what people would view as "in the box thinking" and takes measures to avoid this kinda of ideals. This kind of creativity captivates readers more so than reading about every day life with no strife could. More on that example, men wanting to remain bachelors isn't a new topic. Finally deciding to settle down isn't new either, but Chaucer put a new spin on it when he had the Marquis marry someone far below his class. Lastly Chaucer makes his free and wild thinking become evident when at the end of the Cleric's tale he has the cleric say that this whole tale was to teach a lesson about how man should trust in God and understand God won't test man more than he can handle. This can't exactly be consider uncivilized because the whole tale had a sense of civility, but it can be considered wild because it shows just how much devotion God expects from man. This isn't a bad thing however because Walter loves Griselda very much and she, he; thus indicating that God only tests us because he loves us and he wants us to prove our