Chaucer's Humour With Reference to the Prologue
Write a note on Chaucer's humour with reference to the Prologue.
Chaucer is the first great humorist in the English language. His humour is all pervasive, it is the life and soul of his work. The Prologue offers plentiful illustrations of Chaucer's sense of humour. His characterisation of almost all the characters is indeed humourous. The very frame - work of 'The Canterbury Tales' is humourous. His pilgrims are a jolly band who laugh and talk and narrate merry tales to amuse each other as well as the readers as they proceed on their journey. Chaucer is humourous even on the most serious occasions. He mingles the comic with the tragic and smiles fill tears alternate in his tales, even as in life itself.
Chaucer's humour is most varied. Sometimes it is so sly, of so delicate a shade, that we cannot be sure whether he is really laughing. He laughs slyly at the Prioress when he says, "Full well she sang the service divine, Entuned in her nose full seemly."
The Prioress is delicate and over - refined in her manners but says Chaucer "Hardly she was under grown" and that her forehead is 'almost a span broad.' Sometimes Chaucer's humour is kindly and patronising. He smiles at some folly as grown ups do at those of their children. This is clearly seen in his description of the Clerk of Oxen-ford. He is ideal scholar such as are rarely met with in practical life. He is threadbare, starving for what ever he gets he spends it on books and learning. At other time, his humour is loud and farcical. This is clearly seen in his delineation of the gap - toothed, loud spoken Wife of Bath. She knew everything about love and marriage for she had not one or two but five husbands besides other company in her youth. The occasional fits of drunkenness and the qualrrels which they lead to in the course of the journey provide farcical humour - the lowest type of humour. Sometimes Chaucer can be coarse, brutal and ever obscene in his humour as is seen in the adventures related by the Miller, the Reeve, the Shipman and the Wife of Bath.
Occasionally, Chaucer's humour takes the form of good natured irony. Irony is the use of language opposite in meaning to what the winter really wants to convey. If is an indirect way of criticism and ridicule. This is seen clearly in the case of the Prioress, the Monk, the Friar, the Miller, the Summoner and the Pardoner. The dress of the Prioress and her fashionable manners are described ironically. Her charitable nature too is depicted in such a way as to amuse us. The Monk too is portrayed satirically and ironically. He is fond of hunting, he keeps a large number of fine horses in his stable and he never observes the rules of monastic discipline because says Chaucer ironically, these rules were old and strict and because the Monk wanted old things to be forgotten and to embrace new customs. Notice his ironical remark about the Monk when he says, "And I say his opinion was good, Why should he study and make himself wood."
Next comes the Friar who in treated in the same ironical and satirical manner. In his case we notice the keen irony when we are told that he had performed many marriages of young women at his own cost. The implication, of course, is that he had seduced many young women or kept them as his mistresses before he married them off at his own cost. The irony becomes even keener when we are told that he was "a noble pillar of his order." The Miller's dishonesty is ironically conveyed by the line "And yet he had a thumb of gold." The two portraits of the Summoner and the Pardoner are masterpieces of satire and irony. In both these portraits, the irony is quite harsh. The Summoner's love of garlic, onions and strong drink are indicative of his coarse tastes. He could even 'pulle a fynch' that is "seduce a girl if he got the opportunity." The Pardoner is a thorough cheat, rogue and rascal but Chaucer very ironically tells that he was "a noble ecclesiastic."
Chaucer gives much praise to his Doctor of Medicine for his medical knowledge, but there is an element of satire in this portrait also. The understanding between this Doctor and the Chemists is ironically conveyed to us in the following lines, "Ful redy hadde his apothecaries, To sende him drogges and his leturies."
The author also tells us ironically that the Doctor had kept what he earned during the plague, and that he especially loved gold "which is a cordial in medicine."
Thus, we find that humour ( including irony and satire ) is the most conspicuous ingredient in Chaucer's charaterisation of the of the pilgrims in the Prologue. This humour lends a most distinctive quality to his character sketches. Indeed, in this respect also Chaucer may be regarded as a pioneer in English literature and may even be looked upon as the founder of comic fiction.
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