MB UNIUD

The character is introduced with her social status. She belongs to the Church and helds a high position in the hierarchy of the clergy. To see this the reader can consider that she travels together with another nun who behaves like her servant.

Right from the start the poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, creates a parody of the nun: the first piece of information given is about the way she smiles. This is unusual to describe a religious character. In addition the Prioress does everything in her power to draw people's attention. For example this is clear from the way she sings at Church.

Also she seems to be more interested in table manners than in Church services.

Being and occupying a religious position she is expected to love men more than animals. But this does not come out truth: the reader understands that in fact she loves animals more than common people.

Geoffrey Chaucer plays a lot of irony when he describes the meticulous attention she uses when she eats because she doesn't want any "drop upon her breast".

Easily enough the intelligent reader understands that the poet used the noun "breast" to hint at women bodies thus creating an effect of ambiguity.

The idea is confermed also at line 21 where the poet says "she possessed the greatest charm".

The semantic choices "greatest charm", "so pleasant", "so warm", clearly convey the idea of physical pleasue.

The Prioress weapt for dogs and mice and fed "on roast meat, or on milk and fine white bread", food that not even the poor couldn't afford.

Only in the end of the characterization the poet refers to the physical appearance of the nun who had "her nose well-shaped; eyes blue-grey, of great beauty; and her mouth tender, very small, and red".

Once again the reader understands that the poet focuses his attention on elements that are more the ones you look in a lover than the typical features of a religious character.

The characterization ends with "a coral rosary" carried as if it were a bag.

• SOCIAL STATUS: "There was also a nun, a prioress" "she was known as Madame Eglantine"

• BEHAVIOUR: "Whose smile was unaffected and demure" "her greatest oath was just "By St Eloi!"" "she sang the divine service prettily, and through the nose, becomingly intoned" "Good table manners she had learnt as well" "her greatest pleasure was in etiquette" "She was all sensitivity and tender heart."

• LANGUAGE: "She spoke French well and elegantly" "For French of Paris was to her unknown"

• THE WAY SHE EATS: "She never let a crumb from her mouth fall, she never soiled her fingers, dipping deep into the sauce; when lifting to her lips some morsel, she was careful not to spill so much as one small drop upon her breast." She used to wipe her upper lip so clean, no print of grease inside her cup was seen, not the least speck, when she had drunk from it. Most daintily she'd reach for what she ate."

• REPUTATION: "No question, she possessed the greatest charm, her demeanour was so pleasant, and so warm; though at pains to ape the manners of the court, and be dignified, in order to be thought a person well deserving of esteem."

• BEHAVIOUR WITH ANIMALS: "She was so full of charity and pity that if she saw a mouse caught in a trap, and it was dead or bleeding, she would weep." "She kept some little dogs, and these she fed on roast meat, or on milk and fine white bread." "But how she'd weep if one of them were dead, or if somebody took a stick to it!"

• PHYSICAL APPEARANCE: "Her nose well-shaped; eyes blue-grey, of great beauty; and her mouth tender, very small, and red. And there's no doubt she had a fine forehead" "For certainly she was not undersized"

• DRESSES: "Her veil was pleated most becomingly" "Her cloak, I noticed, was most elegant. A coral rosary with gauds of green she carried on her arm; and from it hung a brooch of shining gold."

• VALUES: "As she'd been taught it at Stratford-at-Bow"