The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale Contents
- Social / political context
- Religious / philosophical context
- Literary context
- l.1-40: The link between The Physician's Tale and The Pardoner's Prologue
- The Pardoner's Prologue - l.41-100
- The Pardoner's Prologue - l.101-138
- The Pardoner's Prologue - l.139-174
- The Pardoner's Tale - l.175-194
- The Pardoner's Tale - l.195-209
- The Pardoner's Tale l.210-300: Gluttony and drunkenness
- The Pardoner's Tale l.301-372: Gambling and swearing
- The Pardoner's Tale l.373-422: The rioters hear of death
- The Pardoner's Tale l.423-479: The rioters meet an Old Man
- The Pardoner's Tale l.480-517: Money
- The Pardoner's Tale - l.518-562: Two conspiracies
- The Pardoner's Tale - l.563-606: Love of money leads to death
- The Pardoner's Tale l.607-630: Concluding the sermon
- The Pardoner's Tale l.631-657: Selling relics and pardons
- Final link passage l.658-680: Anger and reconciliation
Themes in The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale
Themes in literature
Advanced literary study focuses on how writing conveys meaning. Anyone can see what the text is about; the student looks at how meanings are created or implied. For example:
- The Pardoner's Tale is obviously about death — murders. However, the literary student sees how wording, repetitions, images, connections, etc., throughout the text which widen out that theme of death. By the end of the text, there have been many different ideas about what death represents
- Anyone can see that there are men in the narrative. But wording, patterns and images also suggest that, cumulatively, there's an examination of masculinity as a concept as well.
The following are a selection of themes running through The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, but you may discern more. Continue to Themes in The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale...
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