By Sarah Nim (Fall 2022)
Geoffrey Chaucer was born somewhere in the early 1340s in the Middle Ages. Little of his life outside of his work with the Crown is known. He entered the world of aristocracy by marrying the daughter of a knight and is considered one of the greatest English authors of his time. His most well-known work that brought him into the spotlight is The Canterbury Tales, an incomplete series of poems from the perspectives of a large group of pilgrims traveling towards Canterbury to visit the saint of that city. Readers are introduced to a wide cast that the narrator, who is also named Chaucer, describes to the reader in detail each of the pilgrims. The most notable classes are the noblemen who consist of aristocrats such as the knight and squire, the clergy who consisted of members of the church such as the prioress and friar, and the peasants who were the everyday people such as the miller and plowman. The aristocrats are proper, they are noble and well-bred who read much like what modern readers would know an aristocrat of the time to be. All the clergy, except for one devote pilgrim, are depicted as the opposite of what they are supposed to be. They are richly dressed and are either pretending to be all holy or are going against their church vows. The everyday people all represent themselves. They all come from a variety of different backgrounds and yet are travelling together for a common goal. Along the way they stop by an inn where the host is introduced and is where the story telling challenge is introduced with stakes on the line.
The General Prologue starts off the series by providing readers with a short summary about each pilgrim, some more than others, who all come from different classes. Each character is written as a stereotype of what they are known for. Stereotypes are often used as a shortcut to create a character that everybody knows something about, typically a group of people, to get the plot moving. Characteristics applied to a stereotype often stick throughout the ages, even if the same group a stereotype is supposed to “represent” has changed. These features can be played up for comedic effect, but whether they cause readers pain or joy to read can reflect the changing culture reading into the literature. They can also give some historical insights that may have been lost in time due to how societal classes shifted and peoples’ views on them. During a time period such as medieval Europe where social structures were built differently than those in modern times, certain stereotype meanings change into something else. What was once considered appropriate, viewing through purely comedic lens, may be considered culturally inappropriate to bring up. Or a characteristic that seems comedic for modern reader may be something discriminating against that group of people back then. The General Prologue uses an abundance of clothing descriptions and quick jabs at flaws towards many of the characters. Chaucer’s work can be used to puzzle together the type of culture that existed back then and the issues that people had through humorously stereotyping classes.
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Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford University Press, 1998
The Canterbury Tales: Discovery Service for Clark University (ebscohost.com)
“Geoffrey Chaucer.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/geoffrey-chaucer.
This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
