The General Prologue

General Prologue Skills/Terms

• Reading Skill: Paraphrasing
• Characterization
• Satire
• Heroic Couplets

Reading Skill: Paraphrasing

• Medieval texts can be challenging because they contain unfamiliar words.
• Paraphrasing: restating information in your own words
• A paraphrase is the same length as original, but has more simple language

Reading Skill: Paraphrase Example

• Here's an example:
• Chaucer's words: "When in April the sweet showers fall/And pierce the drought of March to the root..." (lines 1-2)
• Paraphrase: When the April rains come and end the dryness of March

Reading Skill: Paraphrase Video

• Still a little confused?
• Click on the link to watch Tim and Moby explain paraphrasing.

Characterization

• the techniques a writer uses to develop characters
• a trait is one word that describes the character
• Chaucer used characterization to describe his surroundings in the 1300s

Characterization Tool

• S- Examples of a character's SPEECH
• T- Examples of a character's THOUGHTS
• E- Gives the character's EFFECT on other characters/their reaction
• A- Tells about ACTIONS/behavior of that character
• L- Description of how the character LOOKS/physical description

Characterization Video

• See another example of how to STEAL character traits!

Satire

• Type of writing that focuses on a specific person, thing or event to ridicule and poke fun at
• Canterbury Tales pokes fun at the pilgrims in the story-- satire
• Today found in movies and TV too!

Satire Example

• Canterbury Tales Ex: Merchant is ridiculed by Chaucer because he talks about how to save and use money properly but is secretly in debt.
• Today's Ex.: Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, etc. all poke fun at news/ politics

Satire Video

• As you watch the iPhone 5 satirical video, think: what is this poking fun of? Why is this satire?

Poetry: Heroic Couplets

• Canterbury tales is a poem of 17,000 lines
• Mostly, Chaucer uses heroic couplets (two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter) for the stories, but we will focus on the couplets
• Couplets- when two lines rhyme

Poetry: Couplets Example

• When in April the sweet showers fall
• And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
• The veins are bathed in liquor of the power,
• And brings out engendering of the flower