Chaucerian Style l Salient features of Chaucer's Poetry l Chaucer's Narrative Style l Salient Features of Chaucer's Poetry

The 14th century was a terrible era in England's history. This remark in the medieval era is both historically and linguistically accurate. At the beginning of his childhood, the English language needed the hands of an artisan and a generous mind to mature. Chaucer was alone entrusted with this job, since Wycliffe, William Langland and Gower were few other renowned authors of the time. When much was achieved in the 16th century, Shakespeare even questioned the future of English, but Chaucer was the one who wrote in English. Chaucer established and built solid foundations for literature and language. Thus Dryden praises Chaucer as 'the literary father of England.'

English is split into three periods, Old English, 5th to 14th century, medium English, 14th to 18th century, and modern English, 18th century. Chaucer was born in the Middle English Age. He has an excellent English style and he contributed a lot. 


The prologue is Chaucer's most known work, in which he transmits his point of view narratively. To revitalize his approach, he utilizes various literary techniques. Chaucer adopted Gaufred de Vinsauf's rhetorical ideas in his 'Nova Poetria.'  His skill in the other part of the world to depict and tell tales is not as obvious as in the Canterbury Tales. He usually utilizes the descriptive technique in the prologue and the narrative form in the narratives. The most unexpected thing is that he completes the style of Robert P. Miller. "Shakespeare and the Elizabethan dramatists have correspondingly changed their language and prospects.


The Chaucer style has pure language, joyful originality, and ease, clear and straightforward philosophical maxims. With almost all his characters, he employs a colloquial term for an easily understandable ordinary guy. Chaucer, for example, writes about the prioress and the Knight, exactly what he saw in his society. It means he depicts reality. His symbolism and metaphors are skillfully used throughout the prologue. 

Secondly, his approach is intellectual or stagnant. His approach is refined and suitable for both scholars and laypeople. This is why the Prolog was popular with people with different comprehension levels. 

Third, His style is both cheerful and funny. He criticizes society because he sees the reality of life. His style is not like that of Juvenal or Swift. His scathing comments regarding Monk are worth mentioning. Chaucer remarked of Monk, Sarcastically, I seyde, his vision was excellent. His light sarcastic attitude substitutes for Horace. 

Fourthly, Chaucer changes his description from its good characteristics to its negative ones in order to surprise the reader. Squire, Prioress and Wife of Bath are the first few characters and we can only learn their true nature in many comments. His style is not showy, fifthly. He doesn't demonstrate his effort in his way. We just perceive the societal picture and not the method it was used with. In the words of Swift, Chaucer thus believes that true art resides in the disguise of art.

His approach is descriptive, introspective, and narrative. His comments are brief and straightforward. . Literature and English were intended for maturity. No other Middle-English writer has an enormous human perspective, skill, scope, and depth. With his light humor and caustic works, he provided these services in English, comparable only to Emperor Augustus in Rome, who discovered Rome a brick and left it like a marble. One relevant comment from Lowell is that Chaucer discovered English dialectally and gave it a language.