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General Prologue: Human Dishonesty, Stupidity and Virtue


In the "General Prologue," Chaucer presents an array of characters from
the 1400's in order to paint portraits of human dishonesty and stupidity as well
as virtue. Out of these twenty-nine character portraits three of them are
especially interesting because they deal with charity. Charity during the
1400's, was a virtue of both religious and human traits. One character, the
Parson, exemplifies Chaucer's idea of charity, and two characters, Prioress, and
Friar, to satirize the idea of charity and show that they are using charity for
either devious reasons or out of convention or habit.

According to the definition from the Webster's dictionary, charity means
giving to the needy and helping the poor. In Chaucer's time, however, charity
meant much more. It included a love of G-d and doing the will of G-d as well as
the kind of person one is. Thus Charity had two parts, one human, the other
divine. Two parts that mixed......

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Approximate Word Count: 822
Approximate Pages: 4 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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