ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

LITERATURE QUESTIONS

MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
What does Chaucer write concerning the devastating effect of the Black Death upon English social, cultural, and economic life in “The Canterbury Tales”?
A
Priests died in great numbers.
B
Rent prices increased because of the market boom.
C
The upper classes were burdened by their monopoly of scarce resources.
D
Chaucer wrote no direct descriptions.
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -One of its luminaries was Geoffrey Chaucer, our focus here. Chaucer and his fellow authors wrote in a world shaped by one of the most catastrophic events of the late medieval period, the Black Death, which killed somewhere between a third and a half of the population of Western Europe.

Detailed explanation-2: -Of the roughly 100, 000 lines of Chaucer’s poetry, the Black Death figures minimally overall. Still, his two plague texts-The Book of the Duchess and, from The Canterbury Tales, “The Pardoner’s Tale”-suggest that pestilence offered Chaucer occasion to reflect both philosophically and morally on death.

Detailed explanation-3: -England was often visited by epidemics; especially plague . Black Death, outbreak of bubonic plague that struck Europe and the Mediterranean area during later half of the 14th century. The severest attack of this dreadful epidemic came in 1377. It was called the Black Death.

Detailed explanation-4: -Geoffrey Chaucer is considered one of the first great English poets. He is the author of such works as The Parlement of Foules, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Canterbury Tales. Humorous and profound, his writings show him to be an acute observer of his time with a deft command of many literary genres.

There is 1 question to complete.