The Canterbury Tales: C/D, S/D

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I'm currently reading the Tales for a class. The edition we're using is in the original Middle English, which makes reading it like trying to run in a snow suit. I want to frolic in the language! I want to be swept up in it! But I keep having to look up words and keep checking on glosses in the back of the book. Now that I'm a bit more familiar with the ME, it's coming easier. I really like the sheer range of it, the different kinds of tales and what they tell you about the people telling them (since we see them from the outside and, to an extent, from the inside, too).
What do you all think? Have any particular favorites?

― Prude (Prude), Sunday, 28 March 2004 09:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha ha, The Wife of Bath to thread!!!

haven't read it in years, but it's on my "to read" pile after much discussion of it in "The Biography Of English". All those good, old-fashioned anglo-saxon four-letter words, I loved it when I was in high school, but it's been too long.

― Psycho Kate (kate), Sunday, 28 March 2004 10:59 (twenty-two years ago)

You get used to the language. I read somewhere he had an unusually small vocabulary for a writer, just as Shakespeare had an unusually large one. (fnar fnar!)

Like Kate, it was too long ago and I don't remember much.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 28 March 2004 11:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't blame the writer, blame the language! MIddle English was far from settled, as a tongue.

― Psycho Kate (kate), Sunday, 28 March 2004 11:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Quite so. Anyway, cheers for the Miller's Tale forever enshrining the principle that the dirty joke has its uses.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 28 March 2004 14:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Classic, classic, classic

― Skottie, Sunday, 28 March 2004 14:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm writing an essay on it right now.
Search: Knight's Tale, Miller's Tale, Wife of Bath's Tale
Destroy: Prioress' Tale, Monk's Tale, Clerk's Tale
Classic, overall.

― Sym (shmuel), Monday, 29 March 2004 08:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm digging the Squire's Tale, too. It's nutty.

― Prude (Prude), Monday, 29 March 2004 08:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Which pilgrim has the tale about the small child who is murdered and thown into the cesspits, but sings...? That one is fucked up.

― kellie, Monday, 29 March 2004 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

PRUDE ARE YOU IN MY POST COLONIAL BRITISH LITERATURE CLASS?

i'm also reading this in middle english right now. hurray. i like it. it's fun, especially aloud when drunk. alcohol makes all old things better, i find. i just assume all dead intellectuals heavily self-medicated with alcohol due to the unavailability of anti-depressants/psychoanalysis.

― Ian Johnson (orion), Monday, 29 March 2004 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

No, I'm not. Sorry, Ian.

― Prude (Prude), Monday, 29 March 2004 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Which pilgrim has the tale about the small child who is murdered and thown into the cesspits, but sings...? That one is fucked up.

The Prioress's; that one was one of my favorites, especially since we're not led to really like the Prioress because of her distinct lack of holiness; it fits well with her character. Bloody, funny and absurd are great.

― Ian Johnson (orion), Monday, 29 March 2004 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

i just assume all dead intellectuals heavily self-medicated with alcohol due to the unavailability of anti-depressants/psychoanalysis.

Replace "anti-depressants/psychoanalysis" with "drinkable water" and you're otm.

― Vitamin Leee (Leee), Monday, 29 March 2004 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

haha. i remember this point being made by a high school teacher of mine. it's a very good one! (the greeks obviously were all about the drink.)

― Ian Johnson (orion), Monday, 29 March 2004 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

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