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Comparison Essay

833 Words4 Pages

It was believed that Boccaccio’s Decameron heavily influenced the English poet, Chaucer. There are unique similarities between Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron. Each story told had their views of society, but yet they were able to keep it very entertaining and light on the surface area. The most extraordinary aspect of Boccaccio and Chaucer’s writing was how they were able to incorporate so many similar controversial themes and characters in their stories. The first theme that showed similarities in each story was greed. Chaucer hoped that he could show the readers or the audience that there was corruption among church officials and pardoners. The Pardoner is very open with his hypocrisy and greed and showed no hint of …show more content…

For example lets talk about a very evil man that Boccaccio told about. In Decameron, First Day, First Tale, Ser Cepparello uses the church to forgive his sins. He gets very ill and needs forgiveness. “Since his sins are so many and so horrible, no friar or priest will be willing or able to absolve him” (1802), and if this were to happen, “ if he dies without confession, no church will want to receive his body” (1802). The two brothers, who were taking care of him, had no hope in Ser Cepparello. They corrupted the church and were able to obtain a friar that would be willing to listen to Ser Cepparello’s sins. In doing so he got his way and lied to the priest to obtain a proper burial. He corrupted the church because his lies were told to the people and he became a saint, which he was far from that. “As long as you give, and always renew, Nobles or pence, which are both good and true”(1913), states the pardoner meaning the people would receive pardons as long as he receives his pay. He had no reason to take the peoples money because a person that works for god only accepts the word of the lord back. He corrupts the church by making people pay for pardons. At this period in time corruption of the church was big and people that worked for the church were able to get away with

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