Chaucer’s Art of Characterization | The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

    He describes appearance of every character.
    Give detail description of his/her behavior.
    Define color of his/her belongings.
    Sketches his/her dress and
    Discuss his/her sound

Geoffrey Chaucer was a keen observer of human nature. Chaucer is the first great painter of character because he is the first great observer of it among English writers, In fact, next to Shakespeare,

He sketches numerous characters in this book. Every character shows Chaucer’s exceptional art of characterization. He creates realistic characters and paints every character with minute details. In fact, he is famous because of two reasons; firstly, he is a realist and secondly Chaucer’s art of characterization is incredible. He combines both these elements through which he creates real characters. We believe in his stories due to the reason that they they seem real to us.

In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer tried to paint faithfully the body and soul of the fourteenth century life. Before The Canterbury Tales we do not know a poem of which the primary aim was to depict and display the truthful spectacle of life.

It is the greatness of Chaucer that in the Prologue his twenty nine characters drawn from different classes of society represent the fourteenth century society as vividly and clearly . There are five different features to characterization: physical traits, actions/attitudes, inner thoughts, other characters' reactions, and things the character says. These five different features can be revealed through two different methods of characterization: direct and indirect. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales Chaucer's England comes to life. General Prologue offers is a brief, often very visual description of each pilgrim, focusing on details of their background, as well as key details of their clothing, their food likes and dislikes, and their physical features. These descriptions fall within a common medieval tradition of portraits in words, Chaucer's influence in this case most likely coming from The Romaunt de la Rose. Immediately, our narrator insists that his pilgrims are to be described by 'degree'. By the fact that the Knight, the highest-ranking of the pilgrims, is selected as the first teller, we see the obvious social considerations of the tale. Still, all human life is here: characters of both sexes, and from walks of life from lordly knight, or godly parson down to oft-divorced wife or grimy cook. Thus all of the information might be seen to operate on various levels. When, for example, we find out that the Prioress has excellent table manners, never allowing a morsel to fall on her breast, how are we to read it? Is this Geoffrey Chaucer 'the author of The Canterbury Tales' making a conscious literary comparison to The Romaunt de la Rose, which features a similar character description (as it happens, of a courtesan)?  Sometimes the description of the dress comes first and then he describes physical features. Sometimes he begins with analysis of character and adds touches of dress afterwards describes physical features. Sometimes he begins with analysis of character and adds touches of dress afterwards. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other; and not only in either inclinations, but also in their appearances and persons. Even the grave and the serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity; their discourses are such as belong to their age; their calling and their breeding such as are becoming of them and of them only. Chaucer's characters are both individuals and types. The Knight is a chivalrous character of all ages. He is a great warrior and a conqueror who in every age stands as the guardian of man against the oppressor. But the Knight has been individualized by his horse, dress and gentle and meek behavior. The young Squire stands for the type of warriors who are not always lost in the dreams of warfare, but are also interested in singing and playing upon a flute. But he has been individualized by his curly locks, embroidered clothes, and his short coat with long wide sleeves. The Yeoman is the type of expert archers, but he has been individualized by his cropped head and his brown visage. The Prioress is the type of a woman who tries to imitate courtly manners, but she has been individualized by her nasal tone, tenderness of heart, and her physical features

The monk is a type of the monks who had deserted their religious duties and passed their, time in riding and keeping greyhounds for hunting. But Chaucer's Monk is an individual with a bald head and rolling eyes glowing like fire under a cauldron. Chaucer's Friar is a type of those friars who were wanton and jolly, interested in gay and flattering talk. But Chaucer's Friar is individualized by his melodious voice, his skill in singing songs and by his knowledge of taverns and barmaids. In Chaucer's time The Clerk of Oxford represented studious scholars who devoted their time in the acquisition of knowledge, but he is also an individual person with his volumes of Aristotle, his hollow cheeks, grave looks and threadbare clock. The Man of Law is a typical figure. The Doctor of Physik with his love of gold and his little knowledge of the Bible is a typical doctor. But the Man of Law and the Doctor of Physik have also been individualized by their physical traits and features. There are many other characters who represent their class, their profession, but they are also individual figures with notions, idiosyncrasies, arguments and particular physical features. Thus Chaucer has maintained a balance between the typical and the individual features of a character.
The Host of the Tabard Inn, later in The Canterbury Tales called Herry Bailly most probably pictures an actual fourteenth century Southwark innkeeper called Henery Bailly. One can think of several personal features so distinctive that one feels that Chaucer's own observation noticed them somewhere in real life. Such details of names of persons or places may well derive from Chaucer's own knowledge, and with them some of the particulars of the persons described, and it is certainly no discredit to Chaucer's art if he did derive some of his inspiration from living people.