Chastity in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

The aim of this academic study is to examine how the concept of chastity is presented in the stories told by different characters in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Each character in the Canterbury Tales has different type of personality traits. The social classes they belong to are different. Therefore, their perspectives on the important concepts of the period differ. Due to these differences, each character evaluates the same concept from different perspectives in the stories they tell. In many academic studies on this masterpiece, Chaucer's personal views are examined through the comments made by the characters on certain concepts. The method of this research is to evaluate the characters as individuals taken from real life. In this way, it will be possible to examine the personality traits of the characters and their considerations imposed by their social class. This study explains how the concept of chastity, a virtue that men and women were expected to possess, was defined by the society in medieval England and determines why this concept was important. In this context, the importance of chastity in political relations, the way it influenced the family structure and society's approach to people of different marital status are examined. This study analyzes the knights in The Knight's Tale, The Wife of Bath's Tale, The Merchant's Tale and The Franklin's Tale in Canterbury Tales and reveals the connections between the personalities and social positions of the characters and the way they interpret the concept of chastity in the stories they tell. Finally, this study summarizes the arguments presented and concludes how the differences in interpretation of the concept of chastity varies due to the personal experiences and social classes of the characters.