Geoffrey Chaucer's Prologue

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) is the most significant poet to write in Middle English. Chaucer is the first great painter of character because he is the first great observer of it among English writers. In PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES all the characters drawn are from different classes of society represent the fourteenth century. The sketches not only give typical traits of temoerament, appearence and manners, but incorporate the essentials of medicine, law, religion, the theory of kighthood and also the faults in social life. Many sincere English Pilgrims choose to travel to Canterbury to visit the relics of saint Thomas becket in Canterbury Cathedral, where they thank the martyr for havinng helped them they were in need.

     The narrator tells us that as he prepared to go on such a pilgrimage staying at a inn named Tabard Inn in Southwark, a great company of twenty or more travellers entered. The travelleres were a diverse group who, like the narrator, were on their way to Canterbury.