View The Canterbury Tales The Monk Description Pictures. The monk takes all this joking well, and promises a tale (or two, or three) of the life of edward the confessor, but first, announces he will tell some tragedies, of which he has a. The monk catalogues the fickleness of fortune through a series of abbreviated tales about such people as lucifer, adam, hercules, samson, nero, and so on the monk's series of little tragedies report the gloomy news that all wealth and position in the world are pure illusion, and nothing can prevent the fall.
However, this irony suggests that the description is actually a biting criticism.
It was one of the first books to be written in middle english. The canterbury tales is the last of geoffrey chaucer's works, and he only finished 24 of an initially planned 100 tales. The canterbury tales. in the norton anthology of english literature: The positive words in this description suggest that the monk is progressive to throw away these old things.
