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Hello Folks,
I am literature student and a big fan of Chaucer -- Thought his poetry in old english but still i love to read him -- I just have decided to start thread about him --
In this thread what you have to do is !!
Just write one sentence about Chaucer !!--
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I'm studying Chaucer this year in college. I read some of The Canterbury Tales on my own, but sadly I couldn't undertsand it without a parapphrase. I enjoyed it though, so hopefully by time I can learn how to read it without explanation or paraphrase.
I'm the patron saint of the denial,
With an angel face and a taste for suicidal.
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Hey Nosa,
I have just finished Chaucer in my uni and after reading it again and again am now able to get it -- You need to study it again and again then u will understand it --
But Chaucer is really cool poet and a master of characterization !!
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A favorite professor of mine will probably do a course on Chaucer in the spring, which I'm hoping to take. We did a few of the tales in her Brit Lit I class, and I really dug them. I found Middle English actually to be a lot of fun. And after reading The Millere's Tale, how could I not come back?
The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable.
--Ursula K. Le Guin
Chaucer took the materials he read and rewove them into masterpieces all his own.
A thread on Chaucer is a lovely idea, EeMmAaN. Do you have a favorite character or tale? I remember being perfectly delighted when I discovered the charm of Chaucer in my freshman year of college. I had read the general prologue in translation in high school and thought it was OK, but when I started reading in the ME for my college course I was hooked on the poetry and happily surprised to find such charmingly nuanced writing and characterization paired with passages of winningly un-nuanced humor. I think the Knight's Tale has to be one of my favorites, but of course it's impossible not to list the ever popular Wife of Bath as a fav. as well.
Incidently, I wondered if anyone on here has read, or thought they might soon be reading Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida? I'll be reading it in a week or so for the first time as I'm studying for my PhD exams, and it occured to me that if there were any T&C fans out there we could start up a little chat in a week or so when I'm reading through it.
Also thought I'd put a link to this Chaucer site at Harvard,:http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/ which is a great place to start if you want to read more about Chaucer. The links to "teach yourself Chaucer" and "Chaucer's Language" may also be useful to those who want to improve their Middle English skills.
Edit: After posting at length, I noticed the pith of the poster above me and the "Just write one sentence about Chaucer !!" suggestion of the OP. So thought I'd submit, as my "just one sentence about Chaucer," a slightly paraphrased quote from a lecture by a former professor of mine:
"You will find that the most profound thing about Chaucer is his sense of humor."
"In rime sparse il suono/ di quei sospiri ond' io nudriva 'l core/ in sul mio primo giovenile errore"~ Francesco Petrarca
"Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can."~ Jane Austen
Dearest Eemmaam, I am afraid that the English spoken by Geoffrey Chaucer was not Old English, but Middle English. The Canterbury Tales, the House of Fame, The Book of the Duchess and all his other works were written in Middle English, which was the language spoken till 1500 when modern English is supposed to be born. Old English was the English of works such as Beowulf (author unknown). But later, in the Fourteenth Century the Gawain Poet wrote in Middle English (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Patience...). Regards
I'm currently reading 'The Franklin's Tale' and I think it's going well, so far. I've got the Cambridge version where it has the translation on the opposite side (extremely helpful) and i think it's very important that we learn the context of time and culture of society in order to understand how and why the plot is carried out that way.
At first, i couldn't help but laugh at how hysterical Dorigen went, simply because her husband, Arveragus went away - she was moping, fasting, crying, depressed and wanted to commit suicide possible and i just thought it was plain weird.
After reading a little into history, it was understandable and i really did try to see her point of view- her love must run deep for Arveragus.
I want to read the Wife of Bath and the Knight's Tale in the future.
Chaucer is ... complicated.
The book itself is a curious artifact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn't have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable.
--Ursula K. Le Guin
Chaucer Rulz! Had never read him before I took a Chaucer class, absolutely loved it. Yeah, the Mid English can be a bit of a slog, but it's fun to read that and then a Mod English 'translation'. Great Fun, he is!
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