about Chaucer's prologue and nun's priest's tale

[kittu]

My analysis on Chaucer’s Prologue to Canterbury Tales:

I.
Chaucer painted the characters with words in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. He described about their physical appearance, their biological features, their manners and more specially their past. This description made those characters lively and down-to-the-earth. One amzing and surprising thing is his undercurrent humour which runs through the description. It flashes like big stars in the sky. When he told about the monk, he said that he was not interested in the texts from the old scriptures. At that time, he remarked ironically as follows:

“ What sholde he studie, and make him selven wood,
Upon a book in cloystre alwey to poure,…”

While describing one character, he said of the qualities either in support of or against to its profession. The Knight, for example, was brave and noble. He fought fifteen mortal battles in foreign lands. He was as gentle as a maid. The monk, on other hand, though he is supposed to be a religious man, hunts regularly and dislikes the scriptures.

However, Chaucer’s description compels the reader to feel that he might have met those characters in flesh and blood and observed them for a long time.


II.

Chaucer’s English is quite different from that of his predecessors and it was so modern at that time. “The Canterbury Tales” was in the form of a compilation of different stories which were beautifully interwoven. With some difficulty, even the ultra-modern reader can understand his verse. By the way of his description, he takes the reader with him, like a father taking his son by taking his hand into his hand, to the Tabbard Inn and explains to the latter every character’s features and their past. The reader can feel the coolness of Southwerk, the antiquity of those times and the leisureness of them.

III.

Most of the writings of that period were either religious or biblical. They ha

d not written of social life. Chaucer was one of the pioneers who wrote effectively of the common and social people. Chaucer is realistic. The pre-Chaucerean poetry was dreamy and non-realistic. But, he made realism poetical. In most cases, he was the first person:

1. In using modern English.
2. In using social life as a subject of poetry.
3. In writing realistically in comparison with his predecessors.






Chaucer’s “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”

It is a moral tale in the fashion of Aesop’s fables. The characters are a cock, a hen and a fox. Their names are Chanticleer, Pertelote and Sir Rusell respectively. One can obviously appreciate the undercurrent humour in this tale.

This tale has the following themes:

1) Husband’s egoic want of showing superiority over his wife.
2) The fate of human beings being as an easy prey for flattery.
3) One should not speak when one needs to be quiet.

[kittu]

Could all of you please reply if you have read it.

[Madras Mami]

Wait for Kat's reply. We are not students of English Literature

[Raja Desingh]

I don't remember if I have read it or not.

[iluvcornflakes]

Sorry. I strictly stick to Russian books.

[Madras Mami]

[Katapilah]

Sorry Kittu. I haven't really read The Prologue. I have read The Nun's Priest's Tale. You've written only a little about it but whatever you've written is correct.