General Prologue: Human Dishonesty, Stupidity And Virtue

Part I of Essay
In the "General Prologue," Chaucer presents an array of characters from the 1400's in order to paint portraits of human dishonesty and stupidity as well as virtue. Out of these twenty-nine character portraits three of them are especially interesting because they deal with ....

Part II of Essay
.... does something good, he will be rewarded by G-d. Many people did meaningful, charitable things out the goodness of their hearts, but others had done it for other reasons. Those reasons included making money from people's suffering and giving to charity because someone told them to do so, rather than from the goodness of their hearts or to ease the suffering of others. Chaucer plays off both of these parts of charity in his portraits to show how they can be combined differently in different people and to distinguish "true" charity from "fa ....