THE GENERAL PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES
BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER
LEAD-IN
In BOOK IN FOCUS, K.K Bonteh focuses on “The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales” which provides a frame story for the subsequent tales. He tells us that in it, the reader is introduced to twenty-nine pilgrims from various social classes who are all embarking on a journey to a shrine in Canterbury. K.K. Bonteh equally catches up with Mme Ano Beatrice Muyang, Ntional Pedagogic Inspector Emeritus in Charge of Teaching and Promotion of Bilingualism who relates this famous classic to the contemporary Cameroonian context.
| INTRODUCTION The General Prologue … is the first part of The Canterbury Tales … by Geoffrey Chaucer. It introduces the frame story, in which a group of pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury agree to take part in a storytelling competition, and describes the pilgrims themselves. The Prologue is arguably the most familiar section of The Canterbury Tales, depicting traffic between places, languages and cultures, as well as introducing and describing the pilgrims who will narrate the tales SYNOPSIS The frame story of the poem, as set out in the 858 lines of Middle English which make up the General Prologue, is of a religious pilgrimage. The narrator, Geoffrey Chaucer, is in The Tabard Inn in Southwark, where he meets a group of ‘sundry folk’ who are all on the way to Canterbury, the site of the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, a martyr reputed to have the power of healing the sinful. The setting is April, and the prologue starts by singing the praises of that month whose rains and warm western wind restore life and fertility to the earth and its inhabitants.[2] This abundance of life, the narrator says, prompts people to go on pilgrimages; in England, the goal of such pilgrimages is the shrine of Thomas Becket. The narrator falls in with a group of pilgrims, and the largest part of the prologue is taken up by a description of them; Chaucer seeks to describe their ‘condition’, their ‘array’, and their social ‘degree’. The narrator expresses admiration and praise towards the pilgrims’ abilities. The pilgrims include a knight; his son, a squire; the knight’s yeoman; a prioress, accompanied by a nun and the nun’s priest; a monk; a friar; a merchant; a clerk; a sergeant of law; a franklin; a haberdasher; a carpenter; a weaver; a dyer; a tapestry weaver; a cook; a shipman; a doctor of physic; a wife of Bath; a parson and his brother, a plowman; a miller; a manciple; a reeve; a summoner; a pardoner; the Host (a man called Harry Bailey); and Chaucer himself. At the end of this section, the Host proposes that the group ride together and entertain one another with stories. He lays out his plan: each pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. Whoever has told the most meaningful and comforting stories, with “the best sentence and moost solaas” (line 798) will receive a free meal paid for by the rest of the pilgrims upon their return. The company agrees and makes the Host its governor, judge, and record keeper. They set off the next morning and draw straws to determine who will tell the first tale. The Knight wins and prepares to tell his tale. ANALYSIS The General Prologue … opens with a description of April showers and the return of spring. “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,” he begins, and writes about the burgeoning flowers and singing birds. The sun has gone through the second half of the zodiacal sign Aires, the “Ram.” Budding, lust-filled springtime is also the time when people desire to go on pilgrimage, and travelers from all corners of England make the journey to Canterbury Cathedral to seek the help of the blessed martyr. The first sentence of The General Prologue, is one of the most important 18 lines of poetry in English. Writers ever since Chaucer’s day have used and responded to this expression of springtime. The combination of the awakening physical landscape with the desire to go on pilgrimage mixes bodily lust with religious zeal. The pilgrims seek help from the martyr St. Thomas à Becket. CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE For another interpretation of the text, I caught up with Mme Ano Beatrice Muyang, Ntional Pedagogic Inspector Emeritus in Charge of Teaching and Promotion of Bilingualism and she explains the Relevance of the General Prologue to the Cameroonian society: Societies throughout history have illustrated the hypocrisy people bring to the table. Geoffrey Chaucer’s depiction of Medieval society through his frame tale, The Canterbury Tales, illustrate readers how fraudulent people can be, readers parallel the tales of his characters with modern society issues. The topics of morality, portrayal of men, and the seven deadly sins have been illustrated throughout the tales of ‘The Wife of Bath’, ‘The Pardoner’, and ‘The Prioress’ to enhance the connection between the medieval and modern ages. Morality comes mainly from religious affiliations, some believe that “morality cannot exist without religion”(Xygalatas). Since, religion sets the rules people should follow, and it has brought conflict in modern society because of those who are atheist, which are believed to be sinners. During the Medieval period though, as an example in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale”, she delivers the message that what women desire the most is “the self-same sovereignty over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her” (Chaucer,lines 184-186), demonstrating that even though the ethical way that men were the supreme gender now women were striking against that belief and starting a new code of morals. Furthermore, in the “Pardoner’s Tale” the moral lesson was money is the root of evil, and this is illustrated when three friends found the gold they decided to go against each other as one of them said about dividing the gold “ I could shape … HOST: K.K. BONTEH Writer and Literary Critic; Pedagogic Inspector in Charge of Teaching and Promotion of Bilingualism. #https://www.befacademy.org |
