Chaucer's The General Prologue

He sets up his poem as a narrative story by introducing characters. The basic structure of the lines themselves run in a simple rhyming pattern. That rhyming pattern can be described as "aa bb cc dd ee..." and so on throughout the entire selection. His layout can start with an introduction of a character and he emphasizes heavily on their dress. Chaucer is known for his keen eye for clothing and he heavily weights the narrators opinion on their way of dress. This is, of course, the narrators first and initial opinion of the pilgrims from his first impression when he finds out, typically in this order: He will introduce the character, talk about their attire, talk about their personality, then hear what they have to say and subtly bring out their societal fault in one way or another. He sets this prologue up as the main story, The Canterbury Tales, to the sub story, "The General Prologue", then to a story of that sub story, the character, their description, and what they say. Chaucer starts with the most important and impacting characters such as the Knight, the Squire, and the Prioress because they have the largest stories later in the collection. Like all of the others, he describes them in the typical order; then he later on introduces the following

The Pardoner’s Tale:  Use of Verbal and Situational Irony In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” Geoffrey Chaucer masterfully frames an informal homily.   Through the use of verbal and situational irony, Chaucer is able to accentuate the moral characteristics of the Pardoner.   The essence of the story is exemplified by the blatant discrepancy between the character of the storyteller and the message of his story.   By analyzing this contrast, the reader can place himself in the mind of the Pardoner in order to account for his psychology.

The General Prologue - The Canterbury Tales The General Prologue The most popular part of the Canterbury Tales is the General Prologue, which has long been admired for the lively, individualized portraits it offers. More recent criticism has reacted against this approach, claiming that the portraits are indicative of social types, part of a tradition of social satire, "estates satire", and insisting that they should not be read as individualized character portraits like those in a novel. Yet it is sure that Chaucer's capacity of human sympathy, like Shakespeare's, enabled him to go beyond the conventions of his time and create images of individualized human subjects that have been found not merely credible but endearing in every period from his own until now. It is the General Prologue that serves to establish firmly the framework for the entire story-collection: the pilgrimage that risks being turned into a tale-telling competition. The title "General Prologue" is a modern invention, although a few manuscripts call it prologus.

The opinions about Chaucer as the pilgrim and as the poet are very different. Chaucer the Pilgrim is the narrator of the tales, and he must give an accurate description of what is going on, even if he disagrees with the character's action. First Chaucer the Pilgrim talks about nature and the seasons. He tells us that he is joined by several people on a journey to Canterbury. He talks about all the people involved in the pilgrimage. First he talks about the knight and then Chaucer talks about the knight's son, then the Yeoman, the Wife of Bath, the Monk, the Merchant, and the Clerk.

The characters introduced in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales each represent a stereotype of a kind of person that Chaucer would have been familiar with in 14th Century England. Each character is unique, yet embodies many physical and behavioral traits that would have been common for someone in their profession. In preparing the reader for the tales, Chaucer first sets the mood by providing an overall idea of the type of character who is telling the tale, then allows that character to introduce themselves through a personal prologue and finally, the pilgrim tells their tale. Through providing the reader with insight about the physical and personal traits of the pilgrim and then allowing that person to come to life and tell an animated story, the reader is more prepared for the story as well as able to relate the physical description to the telling of the story. The physical and personal descriptions of the Miller, the Wife of Bath and the Merchant all aid in the telling of their tales. Chaucer was able to create tales that were perfectly suited for the characters that are presenting them. In having each tale told by someone who has a personal reason or motivation for telling that specific tale, Chaucer creates more of a reaction from the reader as well as provides the entire work with structure.

Lambdin, Laura C. and Robert T. Lambdin, ed.  Chaucer's Pilgrims:  An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales.  London:  Greenwood Press, 1996.

“The prologue,” introduces us to the characters backgrounds socially and morally. Each pilgrim is described a certain to social classes, from the highest, which would be the knight, to the lowest end of the social ladder, which are the five guilds men: a Weaver, Dyer, Carpenter, Tapestry maker and a Haberdasher. Chaucer acknowledges the respect and ranks all the characters by describing their flaws as well as what they contribute to society. An example of this is when Chaucer writes, “There was a knight, a most distinguished man, who from the day he first began to ride abroad had followed chivalry, truth, honor, Generousness and courtesy.” Chaucer uses this technique with every single character to thoroughly detail what they morally symbolize. In order to start the tales Chaucer makes his characters draw straws and the knight who happens to be the most honorable gets the short straw, Chaucer then writes, “Whether by chance of fate or accident, the tr...

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer indirectly depicts the characters through the stories they tell. The tale is a window upon the person that tells it. However, the Pardoner’s tale seems to contradict this situation. The Pardoner, an immoral man, tells a moral story because he believes that doing this will further his ultimate objective – revenge upon God for his anomalous physical attributes. “He had the same small voice a goat has got. / His chin no beard had harboured, nor would harbour, / smoother than ever chin was left by barber. / I judge he was a gelding, or a mare” (21).

Chaucer’s innovation in the Pardoner’s performance tests our concept of dramatic irony by suggesting information regarding the Pardoner’s sexuality, gender identity, and spirituality, major categories in the politics of identity, without confirming that information. Our presumed understanding of the Pardoner as a character lacks substantiation. As we learn about the Pardoner through the narrator’s eyes and ears, we look to fit the "noble ecclesiaste" (l. 708) into the figure shaped by our own prejudices and perceptions, as any active reader must do. But the Pardoner, ever aware of his audience, does not offer clear clues to his personality. This break between what the other characters say about the Pardoner and what the Pardoner says about himself has been a major source of tension for all readers of the Tales and especially critics who search for substantiation of their views beyond the Chaucer’s own language. The general tone of the Canterbury Tales is comic. After all, the pilgrims are traveling to the shrine St. Thomas Beckett in a public act of holy reverence, but the Tales take a darker turn when the Pardoner is brought to the foreground. The whole Canterbury Tales is a collected set of performances, stories told about telling stories. As Joseph Ganim has written, theatricality, by which he means "a governing sense of performance, an interplay among the author’s voice, his fictional characters, and his immediate audience," is "a paradigm for the Chaucerian poetic" (5). This paper shall endeavor to show that the major effect of the Pardoner’s presence in the Tales is to focus the reader’s attention to questions of performance and performativity, literary perception, ...

Chaucer first begins his sly jab at the Church’s motives through the description of the Pardoner’s physical appearance and attitude in his “Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a representation of the Church as a whole, and by describing the Pardoner and his defects, is able to show what he thinks of the Roman Catholic Church. All people present in the “Canterbury Tales” must tell a tale as a part of story-telling contest, and the pilgrim Chaucer, the character in the story Chaucer uses to portray himself, writes down the tales as they are told, as well as the story teller. The description of the Pardoner hints at the relationship and similarity between the Pardoner and the Church as a whole, as well as marks the beginning of the irony to be observed throughout the “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.” The narrator describes the Pardoner as an extremely over confident, arrogant, and unattractive man, noting that his hair is “as yellow as wex,” lying thin and fl...