The Clerk Character and Summary in Canterbury Tales:-
This is a poor clerk of Chaucer in his The Prologue Canterbury Tales, he is also an ideal character of Chaucer with help of him we will know how is Renaissance spirit is curling towards England, the character of the clerk is a symbol of a lot of things at once time. He is a role model for corrupt and dishonest clergymen, at this very same time he is a symbol of patience, second moment he shows up as poor as Chaucer’s lower middle class is, at the same time he is the symbol of renaissance in himself. The Clerk Character and Summary in Canterbury Tales narrates that there is a poor clerk who is hope against hope, he is a character in which Chaucer wants to tell us everything is not worst in his age rather there are some men who are role models for religious life as well as secular life. To some extent, we can say that he is a symbol of Parson’s youth, in his youth time Parson was very much fond of learning this thing we get by his tale. With the help of the clerk tale, Chaucer wants to tell us that learning passion is not die so far as. There are such people that are busy learning. If Merchant’s character is representative is business class and the clerk is representative of learning class and I have told been that in Parson’s character. It is a very common quotation that ‘wealth is property of the rich whereas the knowledge is property of the poor,’ and it can be seen in the shape of the poor parson , he is a learned man, he has studied at university and he is also expert of Gospel. It is very strange to us how is possible higher studies are only important for the poor and the rich are far away from studies. In this, the poor parson is an exceptional character of Chaucer’s age. The clerk Character, indeed, is a revolt against the monastic characters that have been represented by Chaucer, like, the friar, the monk, the prioress, and the summoner all of them are opposite about him because they are indulged in worldly enjoyment rather he is doing real practice that the Christ had been told us.
The Clerk Character and Summary in Canterbury Tales is described by Chaucer in this way, he takes first of all his profession in his hand, he narrates that by profession he is a clerk in the ecclesiastical (church) and it is no wonder for us in that age, the church had very much influence on the life of the man, no doubt, the church had been fulfilled with dishonest men but there is a poor clerk who is hope against hope, he is a character in which Chaucer wants to tell us everything is not worst in his age rather there are some men who are role model for religious life as well as secular life.
The clerk always comes to see in busy with his studies, it seems that he has firm faith in studying after God, his studies are not merely worldly rather it is based on logic as well as reasoning. He knows very well how to live a peaceful and content life along with religious life.
As we know that he is poor and his poverty can be seen when Chaucer says about his horse, looks like a rake, this reveals his poverty, he cannot buy a healthy horse for himself, and this not enough is for his poverty, he is also weak and thin in physical structure, as we have been seen in the case of the monk who is too fat due having taken much more food and bribery by people. The poor clerk is not poor by food items rather he has not had proper clothes to wear that are complete and without threadbare. He is not fond of luxurious clothes, fiddle, or psaltery instead of it he gives importance to Aristotle’s philosophy. That is all confirmed pieces of evidence that he is a symbol of the middle class and a servant of the church. Because that Chaucer’s time , there was no concept of salary to giving clerk while on the other hand the others officials took heavy bribery from the people, here Chaucer unconsciously wants to throw light on the problems of poor clerks.
The clerk character is one of the characters in Canterbury Tales who is not greedy, he never ever runs behind worldly wealth because he considers he has very much wealth in the shape of religious wealth. His religious interests are very clear when Chaucer speaks up he has no gold in his box but his companions are busy colleting gold while his words are packed up of gold and diamonds. His rooms has no pillow but the 20books from it he takes under his head . How is he fond of studies? this can be seen whenever he gets money from his friend he spends his money on buying booking instead of anything so that he may increase his knowledge as well as learning .This shows that he has a Renaissance siprit in himself.
A clerk character is a man who is thankful all the time to his friends that give him money for buying books on Aristotle’s point of view, he prays for them those who give him money.He also a witty man he knows very well where he should speak and where should not.
At the end, Chaucer informs us about his talking style, his way of thinking, way of observing, way of conveying his ideas towards others, he is witty and runs with time, he knows where does what and where is nothing. He offers words of exact time , exact on exact time.
In short, we “The Clerk Character and Summary in Canterbury Tales” give the whole picture of social, religious, and economic conditions.