Humour in the Prologue

Humour is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Humour is the sympathetic appreciation of the comic and enables us to love while we laugh. Humour enables us to see the person's point of view, to distinguish between crimes and misdemeanours. There is no sting in humour, no consciousness of superiority. On the contrary, it contains an element of tenderness. Satire, being destructive, not constructive, is in a class apart, but even satire may become so softened by humour as it does in Chaucer that it may lose the element of caricature and serve only to give a keener edge to wit. Chaucer's whole point of view is that of the humorist. He is a comic poet who walks carelessly through life pausing the notice every trifle as he passes. He views the world as the unaccustomed traveller views a foreign country. He possesses the faculty of amused observation in a pre-eminent degree. Again and again, he contrives to invest some perfectly trifling and commonplace incident with an air of whimsicality, and by so doing to make it at once realistic and remote.

 

Chaucer's humour is essentially English. It is born of a strong common sense and generous sympathy, and there are the qualities of the greatest English humorists like Shakespeare and Fielding.

 

Chaucer's humour has been acknowledged as always sympathetic. In the Prologue, except in his handling of the Monk and the Friar, there is no sting in it. Chaucer does not treat with disdain those whose foolishness he has fathomed, nor does he turn away in disgust from the rascal whose tricks he has detected. If humour can be defined as "the sympathetic appreciation of the comic", i.e. the faculty which enables us to laugh but to laugh affectionately and sympathetically, then Chaucer was indeed a great humorist. In his description of the Wife of Bath, he reminds us of Shakespeare's treatment of Sir Toby in Twelfth Night and of Falstaff in Henry IV. In fact, Chaucer makes us appreciate a character even when laughing at it. Moreover, Chaucer invariably makes more fun of the individual than of the institution to which he belongs. Mockery either discreet or uproarious never withered in him the gift of poetry.

 

Chaucer's humour springs from the rich fields of character. He derives pleasure from the "quaintness of individuality". Through his keen observation and insight, he detects incongruities in men and women and presents them before his readers in an amusing manner. Some of the facts are quite trivial in themselves but become amusing in the way Chaucer tells them e.g. the Squire's locks which look as if they were laid in the press, the hat of the Wife of Bath weighing 19 lbs., the Reeve's thin legs, the Franklin's weakness for sharp sauce, etc.

 

Chaucer's humour is his distinct quality. He says that in the literature of his time when so few poets seem to have any perception of the fun in life, the humour of Chaucer is invigorating and delightful. There is great variety in his humour. It is kindly and patronising as in the case of the Clerk of Oxford, broad and semi-farcical as in the Wife of Bath; pointedly satirical as in the Pordoner and the Summoner; or coarse, as happens in the Tales of the Miller, the Reeve and the Pordoner. Chaucer’s humour is not pure fun. It is seldom that the satirical intent is wholly lacking, as it is in the case of the Good Parson, but, except in rare cases, the satire is good-humoured and well-meant.

 

Chaucer's humour in the Prologue derives from the fact that he is himself one of the pilgrims, one of the original twenty-nine. He is both actor and spectator and both he and his audience enjoy the antics which this clever arrangement enables him to perform. As pilgrim-narrator, he often discloses to his readers something about a character which none of the other pilgrims could possibly know, but which adds something important to our impression of the person concerned. For example, he reveals to the delight of the readers that the Merchant was in debt and the Prioress sang the divine service intoning through the nose while she would not like to do so outside her convent.

 

Chaucer's humour in the Prologue is also due to his unconventional descriptive style. He deliberately departs from the artificial, lifeless forms of traditional portraiture and addresses himself to strikingly realistic or lifelike portrayals which by their very realism of speech and idiom make the incident or the object delightful. Chaucer's witty comments upon the pilgrims such as "This Manciple sette his aller cappe" or his lavish praise upon some knave such as The Shipman or his pun on some words such as Philosopher in the sense of true 'philosopher' and 'alchemist' are also conducive to a good deal of humour. About the Oxford Clerk Chaucer says:

 

But al be that he was a philosopher,

Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.

 

Not least among the manifestations of Chaucer's humour is the quality of exaggeration. The merry Friar with his twinkling eyes is the best beggar in his friary; the Franklin has not his equal; in all the world there was none like the Doctor of Physic; the Shipman had no peer from 'Hulle to Cartage'; and in cloth-making the Wife of Bath excelled even the matchless weavers of Ypres and Ghent. To conclude, Chaucer's humour is one of the greatest assets of his poetic art. As Compton-Rickett says, indeed for all his considerable power, pathos, his happy fancy, his lucid imagination, it is as a great humorist that he lingers longest in our memories, with humour, rich, profound and sane, devoid of spite and cynicism, irradiated by a genial kindliness and a consummate knowledge of human nature.

 

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