The Prioress is one of the characters described in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer's.

The first piece of information the poets gives the reader is about the prioress' social status: she occupies an important role into the monastery. She isn’t a simple nun, but she is a prioress. After that he start describing her body language: how she smiles, how she sings, how she was called by the community and her actions. When he refers to her way of smiling and says that her smile is spontaneous and this rather uncommon with nuns. The poet writes "she was known as Madame Eglantine" to create an ironic rhythm. All these actions are affected, in fact, the poet uses describes her affected appearance. The poet insists on the fact of her attitudes; in particular, her "French component"; Chaucer wants to highlight that she doesn’t look and she doesn’t behave like a nun, she wants to talk French but, for the poet, she doesn’t talk it.  He wants to make a parody of her, and to do that he uses the strategies of irony in all of poem. From tenth to nineteenth line the poet gives the reader a detailed summary of the way of having lunch or dinner of the prioress. As a matter of fact, when she has lunch or dinner, she never gets her hands or dress dirty. She is careful not to spill the sauce, she used to wipe her upper lip.

From this poem the intelligent reader doesn’t expect to be about how she eats, how she moves or her relationship with dogs. For that this text results pathetic like the consideration of the poet to the Prioress. The poet tells also about her moral sense: she fells sweet sentiment for mouses, indeed, for poor people. In conclusion, the poet describes her physical description: he uses lots of colors, for example, in the expressions “golden brooch” or “soft and red” or last “blue-grey” to connote her extravagance and her differences.

She represents the clergy in general and the poet attacks it. To do that the poet is ironic in every single expression which he write.