Prologue to the Canterbury Tales: Background and Introduction

 

The age of Chaucer covers the period from 1340 to 1400. Chaucer is the true representative of his age as Pope is of the eighteenth century and Tennyson is of the Victorian era. His works breathe the political, social, economic and religious tendencies of his time. The middle of the fourteenth century was the transitional period in which Chaucer was born. The elements of Renaissance were breeding. “He stands on the threshold of the new age, but still hedged in a backward gazing world.”

The fourteenth century in England was the most important of the mediaeval centuries. It covered the period of the Black Death and the Peasant’s Revolt, the Hundred Years War with France and the great economic and social changes which we associate with the decay of villeinage. During its years, two kings were deposed and murdered, and dynasties began to rise and fall. The antagonism to the church and the demand for the freedom of thought, which was to culminate in the Renaissance and the Reformation were beginning to be manifested in this pregnant century. It was of supreme importance for the understanding of English history that we should have a dramatic, piquant and all embracing picture of real mediaeval life before the great changes should arrive and Chaucer has given us this picture in his Canterbury Tales. During the English Period, Chaucer appears to us as a great original poet. He had learnt almost to perfection the arts of description, narrativisation and characterization. Chaucer is known for his technique of versification like that of a fine craftsman and a supreme writer because of his humour and personal talk. This period includes his remarkable work, The Canterbury Tales. In this poem he truly represented the comedy of life in its all forms. The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales gives us the background of the actions and movements of the pilgrims who make up the company of the members of the troop who undertook this pilgrimage. All these pilgrims represent the whole of “English society” of the fourteenth century. 

The pilgrims are persons of all ranks and classes of society; and in the inimitable description of their manners, dresses, person, horses etc, with which the poet has introduced them, we behold a vast and minute portrait gallery of the social state of England in the fourteenth century. They are – a knight, a squire, a yeoman or military retainer of the class of the three peasants, who in the quality of the archer was bound to accompany his feudal lord to war, a prioress, a lady of monk, superior of a nunnery, a nun and three priests in attendance upon this lady; a Monk, a person represented as handsomely dressed and equipped and passionately fond of hunting and good cheer; a friar, or monk, a merchant, a clerk or student of the University of Oxford; a sergeant of the law; a franklin or rich country–gentlemen, five wealthy burgesses or trademen, described in general but vigorous and characteristic terms; they are Haberdasher or dealer in silk and cloth, a carpenter, a weaver, a dyer and a tappisser or maker of carpets and hangings, a cook or rather what in old French is called Rotisseur i.e. the keeper of a cook’s shop; a shipman, the master of a trading vessel; a doctor of Physic; a wife of Bath, a rich cloth manufacturer, a Parson, or Secular Parish priest; a ploughman, the brother of the preceding personage; a miller; a manciple or steward of a lawyer’s hostel or inn of court; a Reeve, bailiff or interdant of the estates of some wealthy landowner; a summoner, an officer in the then formidable ecclesiastical courts, whose duty was to summon or cite before the spiritual tribunal those who had offended against the cannon laws; a Pardoner, or vendor of the Indulgences from Rome. To these thirty persons must be added Chaucer himself and the Host of the Tabard, making in all thirty two. 

The Canterbury Pilgrims are described so realistically and graphically that one gets a great enjoyment in reading The Prologue. Chaucer was regarded as the greatest writer of his age, (the fourteenth century), for he was widely read, imitated, and quoted; even some of his success in the material world was probably a reward for his skill with his pen. Three qualities are outstanding in his writings; a humor which is sometimes gentle, sometimes sly, often satiric, but never vicious quite frequently he is the butt of his own jokes; an understanding of human beings which is warm and compassionate but never sentimental; and an acuteness of observation which is unfailing in its ability to discern the most significant detail. Chaucer’s fame, unlike that of many writers, was great in his own lifetime and has remained consistently so for over 550 years. The general prologue to The Canterbury Tales, in some respects the most remarkable product of Chaucer’s genius, is an extended “dramatis personae” for the collection of tales. In it, Chaucer presents his characters, one by one, in a series of vivid, detailed, and lifelike portraits, and also sets forth his plan: to have each of his characters tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back, to while away the time. The result is a continuous drama, for the tales give rise to altercations and other byplays and also further characterize their tellers. Chaucer did not live to complete his ambitious project. The Prologue, however shows how fully he grasped it in his own mind. It would be a mistake to consider the Prologue as merely an introduction. It is a mature and highly finished work in its own right – the liveliest, most convincing picture of life in the middle Ages which has come down to us. The language used by Chaucer comes from the Middle English rather different from the modern English we know.