PAPER Topics

Start of Term Paper
? The narrator in The Canterbury Tales is an enigma. He turns his searching gaze on everyone on the pilgrimage except himself, finishing up in a rush with "Ther was also a Reve, and a Millere, A Somnour, and a Pardoner also, A Maunciple, and my ....

Middle of Term Paper
... to produce a perfect copy is just hyperbole. What isn't hyperbole, however, is his caution before the Miller's Tale. He acknowledges that his audience might not want to hear what he has to say because he asks them if they want to listen to his tale. Besides being a poet who both recites his work and writes it down, the narrator is also a pilgrim. He says it clearly: "in that seson on a day, In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage" (1). But the fact that he is a pilgrim gives no clue to what he does in real life; beggars and kings alike could be pilgrims. So we know the narrator not by his vocation, but by ...