Canterbury Tales Study Guide
"General Prologue" to Canterbury Tales
1. What is the basic purpose of the "General Prologue?"
2. Study lines 1-18. What seem to be the motives offered for the pilgrimage that is about
to begin? In what way are the season and the nature imagery important factors?
3. Again in relation to lines 1-18, what is the relationship between fertility and religion?
4. Study lines 19-42 and 727-48. With what sort of "personality" does Chaucer provide
his narrator? In what does this narrator think his task consists?
5. Regarding lines 671-716, the description of the Pardoner:
a. How is the Pardoner described? What are his physical attributes? Of what "color" is
he?
b. Whose companion is he, and what are the implications of this?
c. From lines 674-76, the Pardoner and the Summoner sing a song. How does this song
affect our view of the Pardoner?
d. What does the narrator end up by emphasizing from lines 709-16?
6. Read lines 749-860. How does the host affect the nature of the journey, if he does?
What does he propose to the pilgrims, and what will the "winner" receive?
"The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale."
7. What demands are made upon the Pardoner in the brief "Introduction" from pages 16465? How does he propose to work himself up to the task of telling the tale in either case?
When he says at lines 39-40 that "I moot thinke/ Upon som honeste thing," do you take
this seriously?
8. Now to the pardoner's own "Prologue":
a. Just describe the basic progress or flow of the speech.
b. Is the "Prologue" a well-formed, smooth speech?
c. What does the Pardoner emphasize about his method and intent when he preaches?
d. What relation does the Pardoner establish in his prologue between himself and his
present audience of Chaucer's pilgrims? How should the "Prologue" logically affect their
reception of the tale he will relate?
e. Following on this question, examine lines 171-73: "For though myself be a ful vicious
man,/ A moral tale yit I you telle can,/ Which I am wont to preche for to winne." Is the
logic of these lines sound?"
9. The Pardoner's tale itself begins only at line 373. What, then, is the function of lines
175-372? What is the Pardoner doing in this long preamble and why does he need to do
it?
10. Regarding the tale about the three "riotoures":
a. What is the plot of the tale?
b. What does it exemplify, if anything?
c. Is there an analogy to be made between the three riotoures' understanding of "death"
and the Pardoner's understanding of his own words?
d. Regarding lines 425-50, the part of the tale in which the "olde man" laments his
inability to die, what is the significance of this lament? Does it reveal anything about the
Pardoner, and if it does, do you think he realizes what he may have revealed about his
own moral condition?
11. What does the Pardoner do immediately after he finishes his tale? To whom is the
Pardoner speaking in this "application" (lines 616-30) of his tale's significance? (An
"application" is the part of a sermon in which a preacher says, "and this lesson applies to
you in the audience as well.") Also, are you a bit confused as to whom the Pardoner is
speaking from lines 627-30? If so, how does that confusion arise?
12. When the Pardoner ends his tale at lines 627-30, do you take his phrase, "I wol you
nat deceive" seriously?
13. Now to the "Epilogue":
a. What seems to be the Pardoner's attitude toward his present audience of Chaucer's
pilgrims?
b. When the Pardoner says, "oo word forgat I in my tale," do you believe him?
c. What happens in the interchange between the Pardoner and the Host?
d. Why does the Pardoner fall silent?
e. Has the Pardoner's "tale" had any effect upon his present audience of pilgrims? How
can you determine this?
14. How is order restored after the Pardoner and Host argue?
15. Finally, does the Pardoner ever realize anything about his spiritual condition? Does
he understand the import of his words and his performance?