You're welcome. I'm happy to help. Let me know if I can answer any questions.

You're very welcome. Glad to be a help.

I think we go to the same school

Glad to help!

Hahaha I do not think so ! However, it was difficult to understand.🤭

I've written a five page paper on a 14 line sonnet before, so I don't see a problem there. I think your best bet is to think about how you want to structure your analysis. Reread those Skipper lines thinking about the character's personality and what it reveals about the characteristics necessary to be a medieval sea captain. If you think about the paper as a five paragraph paper rather than a two page paper, it will help. Identify three different personality traits that the skipper has, think about how they connect to his occupation, and try and find a couple of short quotations for each one. Then turn each into a well-developed body paragraph. After that, all you'll need is an introduction and conclusion. In your conclusion you can consider whether the characteristics are still necessary for a sea captain in the present day or if the job has changed too significantly. That's how I'd handle it. Hope it helps.

Glad it was helpful! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

I did that my first few years of teaching and lost the class and their interest in the Tales. It's probably another hour or hour and a half of reading at least, without a lot of new or useful information that can be applied to such a truncated study of the work, aside from the introduction of the Miller. That said, it's very important to a full reading of the work. This series is geared to US high school students. There certainly is a wider range of interest online, and I'll give your request some thought. Thanks!

Great to hear! Reaching more folks online it seems, than in the classroom. :D

That is true, historically speaking. The nun has a lot (lot) of questionable attributes, though, not the least of which are the male preists she's traveling with. Chaucer never comes out and says anything directly. It's not his way. It's one of those things that has to be left to interpretation. He's certainly flirting with very inappropriate behaviors in this characterization, though.

After a little more thought, I'll also put out there that a number of other tales have a fair amount of sexual humor at the expense of both women as a sex and Christianity in general. Not saying I know Chaucer's intent, but he certainly left room for interpretation.

It was for a high school class, and it was a decision based upon how much class time was available, the average attention span of an American teenager, and the comparativly low importance of the skipped sections to the latter Canterbury Tales material in the class textbook.

A fair question.

Sorry--yeah, I find that trying to make high schoolers read the whole Prologue is a big ask and they lose interest, so I skip a section of less-important jobs in the middle. The craftsmen/tradesmen/guildsmen (depending on your translator) don't have tales, so they really only show up in the prologue. I'd argue that their significance is primarily to show the rise of the middle class and the disruption of the feudal system. Chaucer, himself, is the son of a tradesman, and moved up the social ladder, which was very difficult back in the day. I'd suggest looking at indirect characterization -- what Chaucer doesn't say directly but implies through their descriptions -- to try and pull something meaningful from the tradesmen. For example, they seem to be showing off some silver "bling." Why? What does it say about their personalities? Stuff like that.