“They are all with us today, though some of them have changed their names; the knight now commands a regiment, the squire is in the Guards, the shipman was a rumrunner while prohibition lasted and is active now in the black-market, the friar is a jolly sporting publican, the pardoner vends quack medicines or holds séances and the prioress is headmistress of a fashionable girls’ school. Some of them have reappeared in later literature: the poor parson was reincarnated in the Vicar of Wakefield, the kight in Colonel Newcome and the monk in Archdeacon Grantly.” In addition to this universality of the characters, there is something else in the Prologue that deserve attention. And that is the treatment of the subject. The Prologue is rich in humour. Most of the portraits are satirical. Chaucer employs irony as his chief weapon in exposing the absurdities and the vices of his characters. However, Chaucer is neither cynical nor spiteful nor scurrilous in his satire. This stylistic device, namely, the device of irony as the chief ingredient in characterization, is a notable contribution by Chaucer to English literature. Another feature of Chaucer’s treatment of his subject is the dramatic and narrative potential that we find in the Prologue. We have here the germ of many dramatic situations, while the idea of storytelling suggested by the Host holds promise of great narrative possibilities, a promise amply fulfilled by the Canterbury Tales. The colloquial or conversational style of many of the lines in the Prologue is noteworthy too.