Geoffery Chaucer: 'The General Prologue' from the Canterbury Tales

 The Canterbury Tales as a portrait - gallery.

                                              The character - painting in the prologue has won world-wide fame.  It has brought Chaucer world-wide acclamation.  In praise of Chaucer, it has been said that none is so great as Chaucer in English Literature.  His prologue is a picture-gallery and his pilgrims are like twenty-nine pictures hung on a wall.

                                              In his character drawing, Chaucer follows the method common to all painters.  The only difference between him and a painter is that he paints with words and not with a brush.  He makes nature his guide, he has the seeing eye and he draws his characters from real life, painting them as they are and not as they should be.  Thus, his picture-gallery is made up of real men and women.  Like a primitive painter, Chaucer shows a marked preference for brilliant colours, both in dress and appearance.  As soon as we enter his picture-gallery, we are at once impressed by the remarkable brightness of his portraits.  For example, the gown of the squire is embroidered, "As if it were a mead,  All full of fresh flowers, White and Red."

                                                Similarly, the nose of the Wife of Bath is of fine scarlet-red.  The face of the Summoner is fiery red and the Miller has a reddish beard.  It is important to note that Chaucer uses apt similes and metaphors to vivify his characters.  His similes are drawn from the common, the familiar and the homely aspects of life and nature.  For example, the Merry nature of the Squire is described in a single line by saying that "He was a bright as is the month of May."  The brightness of the Friar's eyes is his most peculiar feature and it is emphasised through on equally apt image, 'His eyes twinkled in his head aride,  As do the stars in a frosty night." 

                                             The most important thing about Chaucer's characters is that they are types as well as individuals.  They are real human beings and types.  Each of the twenty-nine pilgrims in the Prologue is socially and morally representative, but he is also an individual with marked peculiarities of his own.  For example, his Knights is typical Knight of his age representing the fast-fading chivalry of the middle ages.  But he is also an individual who had been honoured in foreign lands above all other Knights.  His son, the Squire, represents the jollity of youth.  Like his father, he is not interested so much in war and adventure as in singing, dancing and love-making.  The Monk in the Prologue has been individualised by his eyes and his bald head which shone like a mirror.  On observing them, we feel that they are living and breathing human beings whom Chaucer mush have met and minutely observed.                                                                                                                                                                     Another thing worth considering about Chaucer's characters is their universality.  They are not of an age, but of all ages.  "They are timeless creation on a time determined style" says an eminent critic.  The passions, desires and instincts enjoyed by Chaucer's characters are common to all humanity.  In their sweet company, we feel at home and we see our own selves in them.  They are shown to us moving, acting, talking and disputing just like real men and women whom we see and meet in our day to day life.

                                             Going through the women characters in the Prologue, especially the Wife of Bath and the Prioress we have nothing but praises for Chaucer.  The Prioress is a lady with fine courtly manners.  Though a Nun, she is not at all self-sacrificing.  She knows excellent table - manners.  She is so full of the milk of human kindness that she would weep if she saw a mouse caught in a trap or a wounded hare.  The Wife of Bath is an unforgettable character.  She is a gap - toothed lady with an amorous nature.  She is somewhat deaf and has large hips.  She has had many lovers in her youth besides being married to five husbands.  Thus the skill of Chaucer's characterisation is amazing.  He takes us to a marvellous portrait - gallery and keeps us wandering there.  Had he been born in the age of Shakespeare, he would have even blurred the images of Shakespeare.  In case of his 'Prologue' it is sufficient to say that "Here is God's plenty." The poet has selects characters from various classes of contemporary society and given them on eternal life.  We are given the impression that we have actually met and known them.  We get the feeling that we have called on them and taken to them.  We carry both pleasant and unpleasant memories of them.

                                                   To sum up, Chaucer is the first great painter of characters in English Literature.  Next to Shakespeare, he is the greatest in this field.  In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer takes to the study of contemporary English society and turns poetry with tolerant curiosity to the study of men and manners.   All these characters have been portrayed by Chaucer with the skill of a dramatist and a novelist.  Chaucer succeeds in vivid presentation of his characters because of his unerring observation.  He has the seeing eye, retentive memory, the judgement to select and the capacity to expound.  His keen observation of the minutest details of his characters, their dresses, their looks, their manners enable him to present his characters in full as a result they appear life-like and not mere bloodless abstractions.