Instructions: What kinds of words does a poet use? Specialized vocabularies or jargons develop in the niches of any language-using society. There are words that belong to the technical lexicons of, say, medicine, or Hollywood camera operators, or law, or beauty salons, etc. Dictionaries often identify one of the uses of such words as belonging to that lexicon, while other uses of the word might belong to the culture at large. The lexical affiliations of words provide a palette of meaning for the poet, who can combine different lexicons to produce intricate effects of elevation or comedy or criticism. For instance, a poet can produce a very different result by describing love using medical terms than she can using baseball lingo.

ASSIGNMENT: In “The General Prologue,” look for the jargons of social niches of medieval English culture.  Sometimes Chaucer uses a word that has a specialized meaning in a way that plays that meaning against its normal street use; sometimes the result encourages the reader to take an attitude of praise, sometimes skepticism, sometimes outright disgust. Find an interesting example of a jargon word in the Prologue and explain how it works.  Can you find other examples of that jargon in the Prologue?

Number of Pages: 1 Page

Page Line Spacing: Double spaced (Default)

Academic Level: College

Paper Format: APA

Project categorization: essays/articles/responses/case study