We began our session with a general discussion of why we study Chaucer almost 1000 years after he wrote Canterbury Tales. In this regard, I contrasted the epic poem we studied, "Beowulf", with Chaucer in terms of tone, diction, and perhaps ,most importantly , his focus on realistic everyday people accompanied by social commentary. We then continued examining the character sketches that comprise the poem's lengthy prologue and through a textual analysis determining if the poet's portrayal is positive ,negative , or sometimes both.