A Review of the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales Part II and a Little Info on The Canterbury Tales

For the first part of the post see the link here: https://themedievalist.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-review-of-prologue-to-canterbury.html

The General Prologue sets up everything to the story that it needs to do. We are introduced to the characters. We peek into characters like the knight or the wife of Bath which later avails us as we get into the actual stories they tell. Further, Chaucer starts off the story with enough humor and description of the characters to keep many readers interested. Satire is used by Chaucer throughout The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer has quite the way of showing inconsistencies and corruption in the characters. 

It is interesting to note that the pilgrims actually never make it to Canterbury in The Canterbury Tales. 31 pilgrims are  in the prologue with 21 of them described. I won't get into detailing all of the characters here. The pilgrims only make it to Canterbury in John Lydgate's The Siege of Thebes. I think this also shows that Chaucer was intending the story to be actually much larger than it ended up being. 

As we turn to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales we will find all sorts of stories therein. The Knight's Tale is a traditional story of chivalry about two knights fighting over a maiden by the name of Emily. The Miller's Tale is about sexual innuendo and uses much farce to give enough laughs to those that enjoy a little crude humor. The Nun's Priest's Tale represents comedy with a Reynard Cycle. For those that aren't aware, the villainous fox named Reynard in The Nun's Priest's Tale also appears in various other Medieval Stories. Reynard and Chanticleer are rivals in the Nun's Priest Tale that ends with a lesson about the danger of arrogance and giving into flattery. In short, The Canterbury Tales are full of so many different stories that their ability to appeal to so many people is not surprising.
As the prologue rightly adds just before The Knight's Tale is told:


Anoon to drawn every wight bigan,
And shortly for to tellen as it was
Were it by adventure, or sort, or cas,
The soothe is this, the cut feel to the knight;
Of which ful blithe and glad was every wight,
And tell he moste his tale, as was resoun,
By forward and by composicioun,
As ye han herd. What needeth words mo?
And whan this goode man sawgh that it was so,
As he that wis was and obediant
To keep his forward by his fee assent,
He said, ''Sin I shall biginne the game,
What, welcome be the cut, in Goddes name!
Now let us ride, and herkneth what I saye.''
And with that word we riden forth oure waye,
And he began with right a merye cheere
His tale anoon, and saide as ye may heere


Further Sources: English Literature by Benjamin W. Griffith, The Nortan Anythology of English Literature: The Middle Ages by Stephen Greenblatt.