Catalogue Form and Catalogue Style in the General Prologue of the 'Canterbury Tales'

Author / Editor
Sklute, Larry.

Title
Catalogue Form and Catalogue Style in the General Prologue of the 'Canterbury Tales'

Published
Studia Neophilologica 52 (1980): 35-46.

Description
Chaucer builds his descriptions of the pilgrims according to the traditional catalogue plan of the accumulation of details. But he breaks with tradition in drawing details of a portrait from differing angles, thereby surprising his reader and expanding the reader's customary expectations. The pilgrims are in a 'middle state' between the typical and the mimetic.

Chaucer Subjects
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.