Read the excerpt from the General Prolgue to the Canterbury Tales.

In the king's service he'd fought valiantly,

And travelled far; no man as far as he

In Christian and in heathen lands as well,

And ever honoured for his ability.

In this excerpt, the narrator may be unreliable because

he is making a contradictory statement.

he is exaggerating the truth.

he is doubting his own abilities to tell a story.

he is acting naive and inexperienced.

Question

English

Brenton Day

22 March, 09:07

Read the excerpt from the General Prolgue to the Canterbury Tales.

In the king's service he'd fought valiantly,

And travelled far; no man as far as he

In Christian and in heathen lands as well,

And ever honoured for his ability.

In this excerpt, the narrator may be unreliable because

he is making a contradictory statement.

he is exaggerating the truth.

he is doubting his own abilities to tell a story.

he is acting naive and inexperienced.

+5

Answers (1)

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Lydia Bernard · Answer 1

The narrator may be unreliable because he is exaggerating the truth.

The Knight in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a caricature of the ideal medieval English knight. Therefore, his qualities and achievements are amplified: his courage, his honor, his loyalty, his military prowesses, etc.

The rhetorical device used by Chaucer to convey these exaggerations is called a hyperbole. An example of hyperbole in this excerpt is: "he'd ... travelled far; no man as far as he." Chaucer of course does not mean literally that no-one has ever travelled further than The Knight, but he is overdrawing the description to make the character seem more impressive.