General Prologue Essay

In his General Prologue, Geoffrey Chaucer introduces all of his characters to the reader. He writes that there was a group of people who met, and were all, coincidentally going to Canterbury. In the General Prologue, it is written, “Some nine and twenty in a company Of sundry folk happening then to fall In fellowship, and they were pilgrims all That towards Canterbury meant to ride.” The Canterbury Tales is a collection of the stories that each of these characters tells on the journey. There

pilgrims in the General Prologue. The Pardoner is a preacher described as a clean-shaven, feminine male who has stringy blonde hair with a high-pitched voice. More specifically, he is a greedy man who fools and flatters others to get money by doing Christ’s holy work and pardoning them of their evil greed and sin, yet, he is the epitome of greed (GP 688-91). everyone is virtuous, rather selfish, and can show through manipulation, hubris and self-satisfaction. Although in the General Prologue, the Pardoner

Canterbury; each has a different role and reputation. One of the pilgrims, the Miller, is introduced with a uniquely hostile tone. Unlike many others, the Miller does not have a good reputation with Chaucer. As the miller is described throughout the general prologue, Chaucer uses multiple different rhetorical devices to show his foul feelings towards the Miller. The Miller’s ugly appearance, stupidity, and bad moral standards are some of many reasons for Chaucer’s hostile opinion; however, it becomes clear

collection of stories in which a group of thirty pilgrims on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, England, to visit an English Saint Thomas Beckett, archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in his Cathedral in 1170. The Canterbury Tales begins with “The General Prologue” where the narrator describes the physical characteristics and personality of each pilgrim. Specifically, the Pardoner is described as beardless, with long, greasy, yellow hair as well as someone who granted by the Roman Catholic Church to give

timeless. This is first displayed in “The General Prologue” through the descriptions of the pilgrims. This is also shown in “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale”. Chaucer also conveys that truth is preferable to lies by explaining what terrible punishments befell those who did lie. While those who lied did succeed and profit from their lies; eventually the lies caught up to them and they end up paying a price greater than what they earned. “The General Prologue” briefly describes each of the pilgrims

The Tale of Youth Chaucer’s Squire’s tale has often been disregarded by critics as fragmentary, incoherent, and “a rambling narrative.” (Lawton 106) These characteristics shed a malevolent light on the tale, and raise questions on the unfinished status in the Canterbury Tales. The argument presents itself due to the interruption of the narrative by the Franklin leaving it without the ending, which has been foreshadowed earlier in the tale. The answer to this enigma is “pure speculation.” (Lawton

In the Medieval Time period of world history the literature was mainly written in the dominant languages of the time: French, and Italian. English language did not have the world dominance it does today, therefore not many people embraced the idea of writing in a language that the majority of people did not know. On the literary side the situation was the same; Italian, and French were the dominant languages in Europe. For someone to write in a less prominent language such as English was unheard

In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer paints the characters of the General Prologue in a somewhat ironic light, offering cynicism and criticism as the poet through the naïve observations of his own fictional personification. One character portrait that receives Chaucer’s cynicism is that of the monk, who, on the first read-through, seems to be a jolly monk with a healthy habit of hunting, but on closer inspection is not all that he seems. In this characterization, Chaucer describes the monk

during this later medieval period. Chaucer himself matured in the King's Court, and he reveled in his cultural status, but he also retained an anecdotal humor about curteisye. One must only peruse his Tales to discern these sentiments. In the General Prologue, he meticulously describes the Prioress, satirically examining her impeccable table manners. In the Miller's Tale Chaucer juxtaposes

The Character of the Prioress in The Canterbury Tales    In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer writes a prologue in which characters are given at face value.  Then, he writes tales that are spoken by these characters.  Perhaps Chaucer is commenting that people should not judge others by their outward appearance because the differences in the outward character of Chaucer’s travelers are often greatly different than the personality that is shown through their tales.  The