Just to continue the above answer and offer you another example of irony and humor in Chaucer's The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, the doctor is also presented with irony. The doctor is unmatched in, indeed, talk:
No one alive could talk as well as he did
On points of medicine and of surgery,...
And why can he talk so well about his profession? Because:
"...being grounded in astronomy,
He watched his patient's favorable star
and, by his Natural Magic, knew what are
The lucky hours and planetary degrees
For making charms and magic effigies.
Nothing qualifies a man for medicine and surgery like a knowledge of astrology and charm making! There is a fine line between irony and humor, and, in fact, surprise is the essence of both. In these few lines about the doctor, Chaucer achieves both.
Closely connected with the above is Chaucer's reference to the contemporary belief in the four humors and the horrible medicine the belief led to. The most common remedy for most illnesses was blood letting, thought to balance out the four fluids within the human body. Chaucer's juxtaposition of the doctor's love of astrology with his belief in the four humors and therefore blood letting may not be accidental.
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