Study Questions

Chaucer: General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales

Please note: These questions are provided to enrich your experience of our texts;
you are not required to address them in any way (in writing or orally).
Well spend some time looking at the opening to this General Prologue--in
particular, its first sentence.
On the First Sentence:
What kinds of things occupy this opening sentence?
You might look at its nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
In what line does its first main verb occur?
What are its primary themes and interests?
How does it work, as a sentence?
On the General Prologue
Chaucer is sometimes described as the first great portrait-painter in European
literature. What justifies this estimation?
How does he describe his pilgrims?
How do the portraits differ?
What keeps this catalogue of sondry folk from becoming mechanical and
boring?
How is English society arranged, according to this Prologue?
On the Poetic Speaker

This Prologue is narrated by Chaucer-the-pilgrimthat is, Chaucers fictional

version of himself as a pilgrim.
What does Chaucer, the pilgrim and poetic speaker, know?
What kinds of things does he say he doesnt know?
Why might the person responsible for the entire poem have put himself into this
fictional pilgrimage ?