Editing General Prologue (section)

==Structure==
The ''General Prologue'' establishes the frame for the ''Tales'' as a whole (or of the intended whole) and introduces the characters/storytellers. These are introduced in the order of their rank in accordance with the three medieval social estates (clergy, nobility, and commoners and peasantry). These characters are also representative of their estates and models with which the others in the same estate can be compared and contrasted.

The structure of the General Prologue is also intimately linked with the narrative style of the tales. As the narrative voice has been under critical scrutiny for some time, so too has the identity of the narrator himself. Though fierce debate has taken place on both sides, (mostly contesting that the narrator either is, or is not, Geoffrey Chaucer), most contemporary scholars believe that the narrator is meant to be Chaucer himself to some degree. Some scholars, like William W. Lawrence, claim that the narrator is Geoffrey Chaucer in person.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lawrence|first=William W.|title=Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales|location=New York|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=1950|page=28|url=https://archive.org/details/chaucercanterbur0000unse/page/28/mode/2up|quote=On the pilgrimage to Canterbury he not only introduces himself in person—one of the commonest devices of the medieval storyteller—but gives himself an important part in the action and makes himself constantly felt, not as a narrator, but as Geoffrey Chaucer in person.}}</ref> Others, like [[Marchette Chute]] for instance, contest that the narrator is instead a literary creation like the other pilgrims in the tales.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kimpel|first=Ben|title=The Narrator of the Canterbury Tales|jstor=2872071|journal= ELH|volume=20|issue=2|pages=77–86 |year=1953|doi=10.2307/2872071}}</ref>

Chaucer makes use of his extensive literary and linguistic knowledge in the ''General Prologue'' by interplaying Latin, French, and English words against each other. French was considered a hierarchal, courtly, and aristocratic language during the Middle Ages, whereas Latin was the language of learning. The opening lines of [[The Canterbury Tales]] show a diversity of phrasing by including words of French origin like "droghte," "veyne," and "licour" alongside English terms for nature: "roote," "holt and heeth," and "croppes."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wetherbee |first=Winthrop |title=Geoffrey Chaucer: the Canterbury tales |date=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-511-16413-2 |edition=2nd |location=Cambridge |oclc=191935335}}</ref>