General Prologue

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 Becket in Canterbury agree to take part in a storytelling competition, and describes the pilgrims themselves.

The first lines from the General Prologue at the opening folio of the Hengwrt manuscript
Illustration of the knight from the General Prologue. Three lines of text are also shown.
The Tabard Inn, Southwark, around 1850

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.[1] 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.[2]

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 lots to determine who will tell the first tale. The Knight wins and prepares to tell his tale.[3]

Structure

The General Prologue establishes the frame for the Tales as a whole (or of the intended whole) and introduces the characters/storytellers. These are introduced in the order of their rank in accordance with the three medieval social estates (clergy, nobility, and commoners and peasantry). These characters are also representative of their estates and models with which the others in the same estate can be compared and contrasted.

The structure of the General Prologue is also intimately linked with the narrative style of the tales. As the narrative voice has been under critical scrutiny for some time, so too has the identity of the narrator himself. Though fierce debate has taken place on both sides, (mostly contesting that the narrator either is, or is not, Geoffrey Chaucer), most contemporary scholars believe that the narrator is meant to be Chaucer himself to some degree. Some scholars, like William W. Lawrence, claim that the narrator is Geoffrey Chaucer in person.[4] Others, like Marchette Chute for instance, contest that the narrator is instead a literary creation like the other pilgrims in the tales.[5]

Chaucer makes use of his extensive literary and linguistic knowledge in the General Prologue by interplaying Latin, French, and English words against each other. French was considered a hierarchal, courtly, and aristocratic language during the Middle Ages, whereas Latin was the language of learning. The opening lines of The Canterbury Tales show a diversity of phrasing by including words of French origin like "droghte," "veyne," and "licour" alongside English terms for nature: "roote," "holt and heeth," and "croppes."[6]

Sources

John Matthews Manly attempted to identify pilgrims with real fourteenth-century people. In some instances, such as the Summoner and the Friar, he attempts localization to a small geographic area. The Man of Law is identified as Thomas Pynchbek (also Pynchbeck), who was chief baron of the exchequer. Sir John Bussy, an associate of Pynchbek, is identified as the Franklin. The Pembroke estates near Baldeswelle supplied the portrait for the unnamed Reeve.[7]

Sebastian Sobecki argues that the General Prologue is a pastiche of the historical Harry Bailey's surviving 1381 poll-tax account of Southwark's inhabitants.[8]

Translation

The following are the first 18 lines of the General Prologue. The text was written in a dialect associated with London and spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard.

First 18 lines of the General Prologue
Original in Middle English: Word-for-word translation
into Modern English[9]		 Sense-for-sense translation into Modern English
with a new rhyme scheme (by Nevill Coghill)[10]
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote When [that] April with his showers sweet When in April the sweet showers fall
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote The drought of March has pierced to the root And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
And bathed every veyne in swich licour, And bathed every vein in such liquor, The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Of whose virtue engendered is the flower; As brings about the engendering of the flower,
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth When Zephyrus eke with his sweet breath When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth Has inspired in every holt and heath, Exhales an air in every grove and heath
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne The tender crops; and the young sun Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, Has in the Ram his half-course run, His half course in the sign of the Ram has run
And smale foweles maken melodye, And small fowls make melody, And the small fowl are making melody
That slepen al the nyght with open eye That sleep all the night with open eye That sleep away the night with open eye,
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages); (So Nature pricks them in their courages); (So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages Then folks long to go on pilgrimages Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes And palmers [for] to seek strange strands And palmers long to seek the stranger strands
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; To far-off hallows, couth in sundry lands; Of far off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,
And specially from every shires ende And, specially, from every shire's end And specially from every shires' end
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, Of England, to Canterbury they wend, Of England, down to Canterbury they wend
The hooly blisful martir for to seke The holy blissful martyr [for] to seek The holy blissful martyr, quick
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke. That has helped them when [that] they were sick. To give his help to them when they were sick.

In modern prose:

When April with its sweet showers has pierced March's drought to the root, bathing every vein in such liquid by whose virtue the flower is engendered, and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath has also enlivened the tender plants in every wood and field, and the young sun is halfway through Aries, and small birds that sleep all night with an open eye make melodies (their hearts so goaded by Nature), then people long to go on pilgrimages, and palmers seek faraway shores and distant saints known in sundry lands, and especially they wend their way to Canterbury from every shire of England to seek the holy blessed martyr, who helped them when they were ill.[11]

  • The Knight
    The Knight
  • The Squire
    The Squire
  • The Prioress
    The Prioress
  • The Second Nun
    The Second Nun
  • The Nun's Priest
    The Nun's Priest
  • The Monk
    The Monk
  • The Friar
    The Friar
  • The Merchant
    The Merchant
  • The Clerk of Oxford
    The Clerk of Oxford
  • The Sergeant of Law
    The Sergeant of Law
  • The Franklin
    The Franklin
  • The Cook
    The Cook
  • The Shipman
    The Shipman
  • The Physician
    The Physician
  • The Wife of Bath
    The Wife of Bath
  • The Parson
    The Parson
  • The Miller
    The Miller
  • The Manciple
    The Manciple
  • The Reeve
    The Reeve
  • The Summoner
    The Summoner
  • The Pardoner
    The Pardoner
  • Chaucer
    Chaucer
  • The Canon's Yeoman {not part of the original prologue but added at the end of the Tales}
    The Canon's Yeoman {not part of the original prologue but added at the end of the Tales}

References
  1. Christ, Carol, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 1, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. pp. 241-243.
  2. "The narrator, in fact, seems to be expressing chiefly admiration and praise at the superlative skills and accomplishments of this particular group, even such dubious ones as the Friar's begging techniques or the Manciple's success in cheating the learned lawyers who employ him". Christ, Carol, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 1, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. pp. 243.
  3. Koff, Leonard Michael (1988). Chaucer and the Art of Storytelling. U of California P. p. 78. ISBN 9780520059993. Retrieved 9 October 2012.
  4. Lawrence, William W. (1950). Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 28. On the pilgrimage to Canterbury he not only introduces himself in person—one of the commonest devices of the medieval storyteller—but gives himself an important part in the action and makes himself constantly felt, not as a narrator, but as Geoffrey Chaucer in person.
  5. Kimpel, Ben (1953). "The Narrator of the Canterbury Tales". ELH. 20 (2): 77–86. doi:10.2307/2872071. JSTOR 2872071.
  6. Wetherbee, Winthrop (2004). Geoffrey Chaucer: the Canterbury tales (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-16413-2. OCLC 191935335.
  7. John Matthews Manly (1926). Some New Light on Chaucer (New York. Henry Holt. pp. 131–57.
  8. Sobecki, Sebastian (2017). "A Southwark Tale: Gower, the 1381 Poll Tax, and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales" (PDF). Speculum. 92 (3): 630–660. doi:10.1086/692620. S2CID 159994357.
  9. This Wikipedia translation closely mirrors the translation found here: Canterbury Tales (selected). Translated by Vincent Foster Hopper (revised ed.). Barron's Educational Series. 1970. p. 2. ISBN 9780812000399. when april, with his.
  10. Gleason, Paul (2002). "Don DeLillo, T.S. Eliot, and the Redemption of America's Atomic Waste Land". Underwords. Joseph Dewey, Steven G. Kellman and Irving Malin. Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp. p. 131. ISBN 9780874137859.
  11. Sweet, Henry (d. 1912) (2005). First Middle English Primer. Evolution Publishing: Bristol, Pennsylvania. ISBN 1-889758-70-1.
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