Talk:The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I made a redirect from The Pardoner's Tale.

The Pardoner's Tale is not a short story!!!

Hey, this needs to be edited. The reason the pardoner tells the travellers about his sin of greed is to insult them. He tells them "I trick idiots by selling them fake crap." Then tells a story, and tries to sell them stuff. In effect, he says "Only an idiot would buy this stuff, now you're idiots, buy my stuff." He does this due to be adressed as "chum" by the host (which is far too familiar, as opposed to the host's treatment of the knight) as well as being compared to the idiotic miller.

Seriously, this is a horrible description of the Pardoner's tale. Whoever wrote this is deserving of the incredible insult the Host gave the Pardoner at the end. I could've written this better without even reading the story. ----badmotherfucker

Authenticity check: A search reveals that the phrase "regarded by many" appears in the text. Is the phrase a symptom of a dubious statement? Could a source be quoted instead? Perhaps the "many" could be identified? Might text be edited to more genuinely reflect specific facts? —Wetman

No, it's an appropriate phrase for a widely-held critical judgment -- and it IS a widely held critical judgment. No question Chaucer's regarded as one of the greats of world lit, and no question that the Pardoner's Tale is on the short-list of his best works (though maybe it's a little off to treat it as a stand-alone). But it's got "treatise on the Astrolabe" and "Complaint to His Purse" pretty soundly beat. Adamdavis 02:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)