The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Chaucer’s Humour Humour is an essential ingredient ( حصہ / جزو ) of Chaucer’s poetry and the backbone of The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. All the characters in The Prologue have been humorously described. Humour, in fact, makes Chaucer’s characterization distinct. A humorist is one who is quick to perceive the funny side of the things and who has the capacity to laugh and makes other laugh at what is absurd or ridiculous or incongruous. Chaucer is called the first humorist of English literature. No English literary work before him reveals humour in the modern sense and Chaucer is a greater humorist than Boccaccio. Chaucer’s humour is consistent all pervasive and intense as we find in Shakespeare’s plays. He paints all the characters in a humorous way. The Knight is as gentle as a maid; the Squire is too sentimental in his love to sleep at night, the Friar has relations with the barmaids instead of the poor, t...