11 December 2010
A nice little piece on the joys of Chaucer. One quibble is that both this piece and the Economist piece that points to it perpetuate the myth that Chaucer was “among the first” to write literature in English. That’s total crap. There’s a continuous tradition of English-language poetry going back to the seventh century. But the piece is dead on target with its assessment of why Chaucer is so fun to read.
If you’re tempted to take a dip into The Canterbury Tales, there is no need to read them in the traditional order of the Ellesmere manuscript. That order starts you off with The Knight’s Tale, which is a great story, but really long and off-putting to those still trying to get their eye into the Middle English. I would also recommend that you skip The Miller’s Tale and The Reeve’s Tale, at least at first. These two bawdy tales are a lot of fun, but they’re the ones that everyone reads. If you only read one of the tales, it should The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. A story where you have chickens alluding to Homer and debating Scholastic doctrines of free will is really funny. The tale telescopes all of The Canterbury Tales into this single story. Also not to be missed is The Tale of Sir Thopas. This often ignored tale is a wondrous parody of bad, Arthurian poetry. The tale is told by the character of Chaucer the pilgrim—so the poet has created a character of himself who spouts gloriously bad poetry, whom the Host critiques with, “thy drasty ryming is nat worth a tord!” It takes someone as brilliant as Chaucer to write bad poetry that is this good.
(Hat tip: The Economist’s “Johnson" blog.
