The nairator in Chaucer's poetry, a pose which is neither completely separate from nor identical with the poet himself, develops stylistically as he declines intellectually from the dream vision poems to the Canterbury Tales (1369-87). In the early works he is neither naive nor sophisticated, but represents a type we know in legal terms as the “reasonable man” who personifies the social-moral norms of society in an unemotional, unintellectual, and unimaginative fashion. This character “Geffrey” seems dull-witted and absurd only in contrast to the unusual situations or irrational and autocratic individuals he confronts. His “reasonable” perception is on a lower, second, level to their sophisticated first, an ironic structure which foreshadows that of Jane Austen. In the Canterbury Tales, the pilgrim “Chaucer” drops to the lowest, or third, level; he is an uncomprehending caricature who “agrees” with the first-level ironist, but who misunderstands his irony. Herry Bailly usually acts the part of the prosaic “reasonable man,” but the poet raises the reader-listener to his own highest (first) level of perception. Thus Chaucer's degradation of his own pose brings about a progressive and significant intensification of his humor.