chaucers humour
CHAUCER’S HUMOUR Chaucer has been called the first humorist, the greatest comic poet, of modern Europe. His humour is the most universally patent and easily recognized of his gifts. ... Unlike some of his illustrious predecessors like Boccaccio, who occasionally practiced the art of humour, Chaucer’s humour is no longer momentary gleam, a lucky accident, which relieves the otherwise serious and gloomy atmosphere. ... It is a genuine humour of a man who till the end of his life retained the freshness of his youth in spite of many disillusions, who was filled with the sense of joy and gladness at the varied spectacle of life, and who delighted in things for being what they were specially when a little preposterous. ... And speaking about himself, he says: My wit is short, ye may wel understand’ Chaucer’s humour has a very wide range. In his greatest work, the CANTERBURY TALES, his humour ranges from the finest, delicate shades of good natured shyness to downright jokes and ridicule which raise an irresistible laughter. ... On the other hand, sometimes, his humour is so sly, that we cannot be sure whether the poet is joking or not. ... This undertone of humour is betrayed in the description of the Knight also , especially when he enumerates in a funny, exaggerated manner the distant places he had visited in the course of his holy campaigns, as Alexandria, Prussia, Lithuania, Russia, Granade, Belmoria, Attalia and Levant. ... In fact Chaucer’s humour is so pervasive that we perceive the humorous intent even in the portraits of such perfect characters as the parson and the Ploughman: there it resides in the sheer idealism of the description. ... Chaucer’s humour is of the finest type.