Essay The General Prologue - The Canterbury Tales

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 Chaucers capacity of human sympathy, like Shakespeares, 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†¦show more content†¦The portraits do not follow any particular order after the first few pilgrims have been introduced; the Knight who comes first is socially the highest person present (the Host calls him my mayster and my lord in line 837). The Knight is the picture of a professional soldier, come straight from foreign wars with clothes all stained from his armour. His travels are remarkably vast; he has fought in Prussia, Lithuania, Russia, Spain, North Africa, and Turkey against pagans, Moors, and Saracens, killing many. The variety of lords for whom he has fought suggests that he is some kind of mercenary, but it seems that Chaucer may have known people at the English court with similar records. The narrator insists: He was a verray, parfit, gentil knight, but some modern readers, ill at ease with idealized warriors, and doubtful about the value of the narrators enthusiasms, have questioned this evaluation. His son, the Squire, is by contrast an elegant young man about court, with fashionable clothes and romantic skills of singing and dancing. Their Yeoman is a skilled servant in charge of the knights land, his dress is described in detail, but not his character. The Prioress is one of the most fully described pilgrims, and it is with her that we first notice the narrators refusal to judge the value of what he sees. Her portrait is more concerned with how she eats than how she prays. She is rather too kindShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The General Prologue To The Canterbury Tales Essays1044 Words   |  5 Pagesthe lowest order was involved in this practice. Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the most important writers in English literature, was the author of The Canterbury Tales, an elaborate poem about the religious pilgrimage of twenty nine people to Canterbury. In the General Prologue Chaucer introduces each individual along for the journey. Through The Canterbury Tales, we discover the hypocrisy and virtues Chaucer narrates in his characters and can appreciate the nuances in this superior piece of literatureRead More General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales: The Friar and the Parson1655 Words   |  7 PagesGeneral Prologue of the Canterbury Tale s: The Friar and the Parson The Friar and the Parson, as described in the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, can be used to portray both the good and the bad sides of clergy. They make a stark contrast to each other, often even directly, with their characteristics as told by the narrator. From physical traits to their actions, these two pilgrims are almost exact opposites in certain ways. 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Conversely, Both the descriptions of the Reeve and the Miller in the General Prologue are quite unflattering; their verbal cutting into each others tales demonstratesRead MoreLearning About Medieval Life and Society from Chaucers General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales1224 Words   |  5 PagesLearning About Medieval Life and Society from Chaucers General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales I have been studying Geoffrey Chaucers General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, of which I looked specifically at six portraits, these being: the Knight, his son, a young squire, the prioress, the wife of Bath, the Miller and the Pardoner. From these portraits I was able to observe the ways of life and society in medieval times. I found out about social status, fashion, wealthRead MoreThe Portrait of Medieval Social Classes as Presented in the General Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Canterbury Tales4628 Words   |  19 PagesIntroduction The General Prologue fulfils two functions: it tells the story of how the tales came to be told, and it introduces the tellers. There are about thirty pilgrims travelling to Canterbury to pray to the holy blissful martyr- St. Thomas of Becket. These characters can be considered the portrait of the whole Middle English society. All the pilgrims can be divided into particular hierarchic structure of classes. The simplest division of society was into three estates: those who fight, thoseRead More Chaucers Canterbury Tales - The Character of the Parson Essay596 Words   |  3 PagesThe Character of the Parson of Canterbury Tales      Ã‚   Geoffrey Chaucer is considered by many critics as the father of English literature.   His literary masterpiece was The Canterbury Tales.   In these tales, Chaucer writes about pilgrims who are on a journey to Canterbury.   Each pilgrim has a tale that they tell on this journey.   Chaucer expresses themes and messages through the characterization of each pilgrim.   Through the Parson, one of the pilgrims, Chaucer is able to portray the life ofRead MoreGeoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales1030 Words   |  5 PagesGeoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a collection of several tales that are all told by different characters and all convey different messages. The story presented in the general prologue is that a group of pilgrims is traveling to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, and during their journey they take turns telling tales and talking about themselves. Chaucer uses the pilgrims to express his beliefs, about religion, marriage, social class, and many other topics. One of the pilgrims is the MancipleRead MoreGeoffrey Chaucer View and Change on Judgement968 Words   |  4 Pagesthe church, gender differences, and hypocrisy. He wrote about these problems in a set of tales widely known as The Canterbury Tales. The first is The General Prologue which describes a pilgrimage to Canterbury that many people endure, but on this specific journey, twenty-nine different people travel together to Canterbury. He uses two types of satire to relinquish these opinions, juvenile and horacian. A general definition of satire is saying one thing, but meaning another. The author Cynthia justifies