The Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a group of tales that were told by pilgrims as they traveled, with the narrator offering a free meal to the person with the best story among twenty stories. They were to each give a story as they travelled to Canterbury Cathedral and on their way back. The Knight was the first to give a tale, one that had love and courage as the main themes in the story (Cohen, Trina and Geoffrey 45). The paper looks at the Knight’s tale and juxtapositions the tale against the teller analyzing whether the tale suited the teller.

The knight gave a tale of two knights who were cousins and were captured by Theseus as spoils of war against their kingdom. Although they were severely wounded, he healed them and kept them in the dungeons where they first see Emelye, Theseus’ sister in law. Arcite and Palamon, fall in love with her and after Arcite is released and warned never to come back, he still runs back to Athens in disguise to get close to Emelye (Cohen, Trina and Geoffrey 67). Palamon later escapes from prison, and they fight over Emelye and Arcite wins (Cohen, Trina and Geoffrey79). Thereafter, Arcite dies, and Emelye gets married to Plamon, and they enjoy a long, happy marriage.

The story is told by a knight who was believed to be valiant and courageous in all they did. It fits that the teller chooses to tell a story about two knights, however, instead of the story having a tone of courage and battle for the land and the King, it was filled with love for one lady,Emelye. The knight tries to highlight battlefields and wars in the story, and, although he narrates how the empire of King Theseus conquered other kingdoms; the Knights are seen to be fighting for love rather than the kingdom. The Knight tells an emotional story and the detail with which he exemplifies the mourning of Arcite’s death and the fact that Palamon married to live a loving life thereafter is not fitting to be a story narrated by a Knight. The story is too fairy tale and not riddled with enough tragedy and war to befit the teller who was the knight.

Works Cited

Cohen, Barbara, Trina Schart Hyman, and Geoffrey Chaucer. Canterbury tales. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1998. Print.