A Comparative Study of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and Attar’s The Conference of the Birds

Two major works of literature, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and Attar’s The Conference of the Birds, display a number of strikingly similarities, in addition to a number of prominent differences. This paper tries to shed light on similarities and differences between these two works; therefore, the story direction, narrative techniques, characterization techniques, and settings of both works are compared. The results shows that both authors used figurative pilgrimage or journey as the mean for self knowledge, both works are the collections of stories that all fit in a larger story and characters present their true personalities through their speeches and their clothes or appearances; Meanwhile The ideas which each author attempts to impart to his readers differ greatly from each other. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales shows the Roman Catholic influences in England society, while Attar’s book is influenced by Islamic and Sufism values and principles of his period.