03-17-2003, 12:15 AM | #1 |
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Geoffrey Chaucer
There seems to have been some discussion of Chaucer over the General Messages, so I figured I'd start this thread.
I read some of The Canterbury Tales this past semester in British Lit and kinda enjoyed it. It's going to be cool because I'm actually going to Canterbury this summer. Anyway, this is the Chaucer thread. Discuss.
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03-17-2003, 03:13 AM | #2 |
Corruptor
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We also did the Canterbury Tales - I thought it was extremely boring & pretensious, it really did nothing for me & I would much rather have read some other classics.
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03-17-2003, 12:18 PM | #3 |
The Buckleberry Fairy/Captain
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I really do like the Canterbury Tales, but I just don't want to write a paper on them right now.
*wonders how long it will be before Huan finds this thread*
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03-19-2003, 03:48 PM | #4 |
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I've read very little of Chaucer, but what I have read, I really love. I love studying the development of the English language, and do reading Middle English is really cool and interesting to me. I think that next year at school we're going to actually study selections from the Canterbury Tales, so I'm excited about that.
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03-20-2003, 11:22 AM | #5 |
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Yay for me! I'm finished w/ my paper! I wish I could say that I 'm done completely, but I have to keep reading the darn thing for my final in two weeks.
I'll love it again in the not-too-distant future, but I've just had Chaucer overload, I guess.
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03-20-2003, 01:35 PM | #6 |
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It took me THIS long to find this thread, Crickhollow! Unfortunately, I too have Chaucer overload, because I took a course in him from a professor who just COMPLETELY rubbed me the wrong way (figuratively speaking). I gotta know, what did you write your paper on? This last class, I couldn't think of ANYTHING to write. Chaucer scholars are very intimidating, and I just choked.
Speaking of which, Baby-K, you think Chaucer is boring and pretentious? You obviously didn't read the Miller's Tale. No story about a man being tricked into kissing a woman's naked "erse" could be called boring. It's Chaucer SCHOLARS whose writing is boring and pretentious. Middle English is so beautiful. Sometimes I just walk around reciting the first fourteen lines of CT. "Whan that April with his shoores soote," etc. That must be a sign of some terrible psychosis. |
03-20-2003, 01:40 PM | #7 | |
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Chaucer's great.
But my real point is: Quote:
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And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. |
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03-20-2003, 02:43 PM | #8 |
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Sorry, to interrupt your conversation, but isn't this they guy they mentioned in "A Knight's tale"?
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03-20-2003, 06:17 PM | #9 |
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Yes, in the movie A Knight's Tale Geoffrey Chaucer is the gambling-prone announcer to Sir Ulrich von Lichenstein.
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03-21-2003, 09:27 AM | #10 |
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I think I gotta get one of his books.
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03-22-2003, 03:23 PM | #11 | ||
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Quote:
Quote:
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Jesus saved me "To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child" (Cicero, 106-43 B.C.) "Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth" (Picasso) Last edited by Shadowfax : 03-22-2003 at 03:25 PM. |
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03-23-2003, 04:33 AM | #12 |
The Elvish Temptress
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Thanks for the warning, but hopefully they translated his work into German and then I'll buy a German edition.
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03-23-2003, 11:56 AM | #13 |
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i luv archaic writing. i will read ot for just this reason.
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03-25-2003, 03:50 PM | #14 | |
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Quote:
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Jesus saved me "To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child" (Cicero, 106-43 B.C.) "Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth" (Picasso) |
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03-27-2003, 09:29 PM | #15 |
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If you're worried about the language, Harvard has a pretty good interlinear translation, but it really is worth it to read in the original Middle English.
My professor was a very pregnant, brilliantly red-haired scottish woman, and the class was all female (except for one brave soul)-- so we had a lot of fun. I wrote my term paper on Chaucer's view of marriage, using the Wife of Bath's prologue and Tale, and the Franklin's Tale. The Wife of Bath is such a funny character. My favorite line from the Millers Tale? "Tehee!" quod she, and clapte the wyndow to,"
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03-27-2003, 09:33 PM | #16 |
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My husband was named after him.
I love The Canterbury Tales. I did the Middle English version of the first lines for the "first lines game," remember anyone? |
03-27-2003, 10:39 PM | #17 |
Elven Warrior
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I love that line too, Crickhollow; it's very fun to say aloud. Your paper topic sounds much more enjoyable than what I endured from that professor who so turned me off of academics; since I could never come up with a topic, he assigned me the "problem of intentionality" in Chaucer. Sounds fascinating, doesn't it?
Last edited by Huan : 03-27-2003 at 10:41 PM. |
03-28-2003, 01:18 PM | #18 |
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I had to read one Canterbury Tale for Honors Language Arts last year, and I ended up reading them all. Chaucer had a great talent for creating characters and putting them in precarious or ironic situations.
And AKT!Chaucer? I love Paul Bettany ::g:: Di
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04-04-2003, 02:53 AM | #19 | ||
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Quote:
Quote:
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04-04-2003, 03:19 AM | #20 |
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Oh, and to put the punctuation mark on that, the godawful seven-page paper I turned in (graduate papers are expected to be between 13 and 25 pages) warranted me a C in the class. Because what was I gonna say about "the problem of intentionality" anyway?!! A C at the graduate level is the same as a failed class. Oh well. None of this is Chaucer's fault, now is it ? I think our man Geoffrey has been hijacked by the same tasteless careerist tenure-minded feminist/ marxist/ race-studies/ classist "academics" who have ruined Shakespeare the last thirty years. Obviously all this touches a nerve.
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