From the exemplum to the fabliau in chaucer' s Canterbury Tales: From the irreproachable maiden to the licentious woman

In my thesis I am writing about the Chaucerian transition from the exemplum to the fabliau through the moral corruption of the heroines of the tales that belong to each literary genre. There are five chapters in my thesis. The first part is about the masterpiece itself, containing the framework of The Canterbury Tales and laying stress upon the significance of the writer himself as well. In the second chapter I am going to present the two literary genres on which my thesis is based, the exemplum and the fabliau. Taking the contemporary scholars into consideration, the third part is about the tales that belong to each genres, and the fourth chapter contains the presentation of the tales. In this last part I compare the tales on the basis of the morals of their female characters. I come to the conclusion that the transition from the exemplum to the fabliau is evident and that nothing shows this fact better than the personalities of the heroines of these tales.