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Geoffrey Chaucer's Use of Humor in The Canterbury Tales
Chaucer's pervasive, sympathetic humor is especially
characteristic. We can see him looking with twinkling eyes at the
Miller, "tolling thrice"; at the Monk, "full fat and in good point,"
hunting with his greyhounds, "swift as fowl in flight," or smiling
before a fat roast swan; at the Squire, keeping the nightingale
company; at the Doctor, prescribing the rules of astrology. The Nun
feels a touch of his humor:--
"Ful wel she song the service divyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely."
Of the lawyer, he says:--
"No-wher so bisy a man as he ther nas,
And yet he semed bisier than he was."
Sometimes Chaucer's humor is so delicate as to be lost on those who
are not quick-witted. Lowell instances the case of the Friar, who,
"before setting himself softly down, drives away the cat," and adds
what is true only of those who have acute understanding: "We know,
without need of more words, that he has chosen the snuggest corner."
His humor is often a graceful cloak for his serious philosophy of
existence. The humor in the _Prologue_ does not impair its worth to
the student of fourteenth-century life.
Although Chaucer's humor and excellence in lighter vein are such
marked characteristics, we must not forget his serious qualities; for
he has the Saxon seriousness as well as the Norman airiness. As he
looks over the struggling world, he says with a sympathetic heart:--
"Infinite been the sorwes and the teres
Of olde folk, and folk of tendre yeres."
In like vein, we have:--
"This world nis but a thurghfare ful of wo,
And we ben pilgrimes, passinge to and fro;
Deeth is an ende of every worldly sore."
"Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse.
Forthe, pylgrime, forthe! forthe, beste out of thi stal!
Knowe thi contree, look up, thank God of al!"
The finest character in the company is that of the Parish Priest, who
attends to his flock like a good Samaritan:--
"But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taughte, and first he folwed it him-selve."
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