In the middle ages, three virtues, the vital, natural, and animal, were believed to control the body. To realize the exact extent of Chaucer's achievement in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, we must look at the descriptions he used to describe the bodies of these tales. This paper will take a look at several of Chaucer's bodies and the way in which he unfolds their persona. In all the tales, all human points of view have something to be said for them and something to be said against them. Chaucer's Knight is the personification of those [courtly] ideals, yet he is far more than the lay figure he would be were he that alone; like the other pilgrims taking this April journey to Canterbury, he is flesh and blood. He is one of those exceptional heroes who strive to live according to a great ideal yet who is at the same time understandably and understandingly human.
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