“A Poet Ther Was”: Chaucer's Voices in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
Barbara Nolan
In his General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales , Chaucer presents three major attempts at authorial voicing. Through the voices of “clerk,” pilgrim, and Harry Bailly, he explores poet's roles limits poetry. A clerkly voice, assuming authority a philosopher, speaks opening eighteen lines. who occupies privileged position among voices, guides central section Prologue, as defines complex, tenuous, dialogic relationship with materials—the other pilgrims mortal world. last voices—Harry Bailly's—introduces theory poetry mirthful distraction, unmoored in quest for truth. Chaucer's multivoiced exploration poetic dramatizes wide range medieval attitudes toward purpose is not arrive “correct” notion but raise questions about what fiction language can cannot do.
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America