Hybrid Discourse in the General Prologue Portraits

Description: Analyzes the "range of discourses" in several GP descriptions, particularly those of the Monk, Friar, Parson, Clerk, Sergeant at Law, and Prioress. In various ways, Chaucer combines estates satire, free indirect discourse, the opinions of the narrator, and voice and "character zone" as theorized by Bakhtin to produce clear satire, approbation, and unresolved ambiguity in individual descriptions. Chaucer anticipates narrative techniques of the novel.

Chaucer Subjects: General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales; Prioress and Her Tale; Monk and His Tale; Friar and His Tale; Clerk and His Tale; Man of Law and His Tale; Parson and His Tale