Sunday, March 28, 2010

Melibee!

I really enjoyed this tale even with the incessant spewing of proverbs and the forgetfulness of the Melibeus and Prudence.

Now I have been thinking over some comments made in class on Friday and have come to the same conclusion I did then. Prudence is a feminist. Yes she forgoes her "motherly" role and chooses reason to sort out her husband's grief and issues with vengeance and revenge. And she irritatingly quotes learned men (though Melibeus does this as well but it seemed not to bother anyone as much) and does not have a real though of her own.

This is where I take issue. Do we not like Prudence because she does not play into what we believe to be the traditional role? Is it because she chooses to act upon reason rather than passion like a man? Why is it that we blame Prudence for the neglect of her child but not Melibeus?

I think it is interesting that when women do not fall into the completely traditional and stereotypical role there is something that leaves a bad taste in people's mouths...but why? Why can't a woman quote learned men? Is it so bad that she herself is obviously well-read? Or do we insist on saying that these quotes are used by Prudence because she cannot think for herself?

I know it seems a litle rant-y but I believe if it was Melibeus who was trying to calm Prudence with reason and he forgot all about Sophia then we would have had a completely different discussion on our hands.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Reformation Talk in the Prioress's Tale

Apologies, I seem to be spamming a bit today.

Anyway, on Tuesday, while we were discussing the Prioress's Tale, it was mentioned by Professor Wenthe that one of the possible motivations of the Prioress in telling her tale was to emphasize the importance of intent in prayer, rather then absolute perfect repetition. The boy didn't actually know what he was saying, he only knew it was for the Virgin Mary, and his Latin was most likely a little skewed. Something that didn't bother anyone in story, or the Prioress, but would have undoubtedly irked the more strict Catholic Priests.

I thought at the time, of the Prioress and her stance, "that's a bit Protestant-y." Which, okay, isn't a word, but legitemately the stance of the Prioress is a bit more liberal in thinking then the church at the time generally allowed. In particular, the idea of stict adherence to Church ceremony being ultimately less importance than spiritual intent is very similar to what one reformer within the Church, John Wyclif, was preaching about during Chaucer's time.

However, a majority of the readings I found while researching this topic seem to go out of their way to warn us away from being too free in applying any one religious label to Chaucer. We know for a fact hat he died a member of the church, and while reform was spoken of in his time, and certain associations he had would seem to link him to people like John Wyclif, there is no definitive proof that Chaucer was a Protestant-in-the-making.

Would I like to think he was? Of course. I also like to think, however, that he went out of the way to give us, through the pilgrims themselves and their stories, a wide array of individuals, many of them members of the church. There are alternately Monks who are evil and Monks who are pious, and arguing of religion and its potentially corruptible figures in the tales and outside of them.

Lawrence Besserman does a much better job then I possibly could dissecting the many possible readings into The Prioress's tale. If you're interested at all, I suggest you take a look at his article, Ideology, Antisemitism and Chaucer's "Prioress's Tale.

I can't begin to definitively state if the reformation language in the Prioress's Tale was purposeful, but I choose to believe so. If not necessarily because Chaucer himself adhered to such ideology, because he was aware of such talk and referenced it in an effort to display a truly varied collection of people and positions in life.

Thoughts?

Chaucer, now with more British pop stars...


So I have a friend who lives in London who has suffered through my endless diatribes about my classes, and who emailed last week with a link to a BBC website and one, ominous sentence in the subject line: thought you would want to see this.

Apparently the BBC did a recent adaptation of a handful of The Canterbury Tales. Among them, The Man of Law's Tale, The Wife of Bath, and The Miller's Tale. Below I've copied and the description of The Miller's Tale:



John (Dennis Waterman) runs a pub in suburban Kent. He hosts a regular Karaoke night, where his much younger wife Alison (Billie Piper) is queen bee. One night a smooth talking stranger, Nick (James Nesbitt), arrives claiming to be a talent scout and declaring that Alison has what it takes to be a star. Alison is drawn to him by the promise of fame, but his motives aren't quite what they seem.

My obsession with Billie Piper (thank you, Doctor Who) aside, I'm both intrigued and horrified. I immediately decided this mixture of feeling needed to be shared, and hence this blog post.

You can check out descriptions of the rest of the adaptations at the BBC's site, here.

Aforementioned Friend from London-town, has offered to get a hold of the DVDs for me, and what I would like to know is, if it's possible for me to get a hold of them and copy them, if people would be at all interested in witnessing the horror/hilarity?

Beyond that, what are your thoughts on these adaptations? The MFA in me would rather see originality then a constant reworking of older material, but I can't deny that in some instances these kinds of adaptations have proven to be wildly successful (Wicked, anyone?).

So. Thoughts?

Monday, March 15, 2010

The Pardoner

Okay, apparently the Pardoner is universally held to be contemptible, hypocritical and "grotesque" (Glenn Burger quoting Donald Howard), but I really like him, not (only) because he does gay kissing at the end. More than that-- I felt like the text was asking me to like him. That might be my own fancy at work. I just feel like, whatever his criminality and misanthropy, his great candor would be enough to illustrate Chaucer's favor. The fact that his entire story is quoted-- it's so boldly insincere and yet so frank.

He reminds me of Marmeladov, the confessional and unrepentant alcoholic in Crime & Punishment: "Yeah, I am a cheeky villain; I suck; it's all good."



PLEASE TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS

Don't You Wish Your Creative Title Was Hot Like Mine: Troubled Binaries in the Physician's Tale

Hey, friends! I wanted to offer a brief response to Glenn Burger's reading of the Physician's Tale, as my reading differs on an intuitive level, and I'd like to hear other thoughts on it.

Burger's argument is that the Physician's Tale models the excision of the feminine from the masculine homosocial world/psyche: an excision that the Pardoner then performs by telling a tale with no female characters in it and that the pilgrims perform through their antipathy to the feminized Pardoner. However, I read the Physician's Tale as condemning the actions of Virginius and problematizing the ostensible meaning behind the "historial thyng," based on the differences between Livy's tale as it appears in Romance of the Rose and the Physician's Tale. For instance:

* In the story as told in Romance of the Rose, there is no pathos for the daughter-- Virginius leaves the court, he removes his daughter's head, he comes back. The Physician, on the other hand, describes Virginia with her arms around her father, asking for "grace" and "remedye" (236).

* The Physician's seemingly tangential (do Appias' actions constitute betrayal if Virginia did not know him, let alone store any faith in him?) preliminary invective:

And taketh kep of that that I shal seyn:
Of alle tresons sovereyn pestilence
Is whan a wight bitrayseth innocence.
(90-92)

* And this weird seeming narrative mistake, when the Physician notes that, after Appias kills himself and Virginius pardons Claudius, "The remenant were anhanged, moore and lesse / That were consentant of this cursednesse" (275-76). Only no other villain was explicitly named in the story. Romance of the Rose explains that those "remenant" were the false witnesses against Virginius, but the absence of this explanation in the Physician's Tale seems loud. When I read it, I assumed it was the father who was the last "conentant of this cursednesse"-- the very next line explains, "Heere may men seen how synne hath his merite."

If we can read the Physician as in opposition to the actions of Virginius, the moments in the text when female becomes male--

* Nature (femininized) --> "vicaire general" (20)
* maistresses --> A theef of venysoun, that hath forlaft / His likerousnesse and al his olde craft" (83-84)
* Virginia --> Virginius

may not be instances of the masculine swallowing the feminine (as Burger suggests) but instances of gender transitivity. That relies, of course, on a subversive Physician, and it also implies a Pardoner at odds with Donald Howard's and Glenn Burger's "grotesque." But, uh, more on that anon.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Franklin's Tale: No Creative Title Needed

The Franklin's Tale is my favorite tale as I said in class. But why you ask? I think it is the most accessible tale especially to scholars (and students) of the 21st Century.

It begins as a very simple love story about a lady, Dorigen, and her knight, Arveragus. I say a lady and her knight rather than a knight and his lady because as stated in line 730-35 "Ther was a knyght that loved and dide his payne/ To serve a lady in his beste wise;/ And many a labour, many a greet emprise,/ He for his lady wroghte er she were wonne./ For she was oon the faireste under sonne,/ And eek therto comen of so heigh kynrede

This is the first time we see a women presiding over a man because it befits he station to do so. I think it speaks to the relationship Chaucer has with his female storytellers and female characters. By establishing Dorigen's superiority over Arveragus from the beginning allows the reader to become more invested in her as a leading character. In the other tales involving women, even if they were a main component in the tale, we always dependent of the male counterparts story as well. Dorigen stands relatively alone in her will. After Arveragus is gone and Aurelius the Squire comes and makes his proclamation of love to Dorigen and she agrees it is to spare the feelings of the love sick servant. How was she to know that he would take and innocent agreement and find a magician to help him win?

Yes, I understand we do crazy things for love, however Aurelius uses magic as the means to win his love (and notice that it is his love not hers). He takes advantage of her virtuous and piteous nature to essentially trick her into marrying him. Arveragus returns and releases Dorigen from their bonds with an open heart knowing that he would not be the one to cause her to forsake herself. Seeing what he has done to Dorigen, Aurelius proceeds to the same end. Which brings me to the other reason I love this tale. The two questions asked at very end "Lordynges, this question, thanne, wol I aske now,/ Which was the mooste fre, as thynketh yow?/ Now telleth me, er that ye ferther wende. (11621-1623)

Now I believe Arveragus is the more noble of the two. He releases, without question, Dorigen without questions because he has faith in her. Aurelius, if he truly loved her, would never have put her in that position. He takes away the one thing, according to the Wife of Bath's tale, women want, sovereignty. Aurelius uses trickery and magic to win Dorigen for himself, Arveragus uses his will, honor and loyalty.

Oh and why I think it is appropriate for 21st century scholars-How many of you out there, whether man or women, have been put in a position to see and escape only to realize you've been blindsided by and act of impossiblity?

There is much more to the tale than that which I have stated, some things I still have questions about. But please add your two cents!

Monday, March 1, 2010

Of queynte mirours and of perspectives: the Squire's Tale

Hello, friends! I hope you all enjoyed the Squire's Tale, as it is probably my favorite of the Canterbury Tales by virtue of its weirdness.

How is it weird and/or notable?

(a) The Squire's Tale is a pastiche of different kinds of stories (the epic, the romance, the beast fable) without really going anywhere. This is frequently ascribed to the Squire's youth and immaturity-- he wants to tell a cool tale like his dad, but he's not quite there-- but that seems to run counter to the Squire's portrait in the General Prologue:

He koude songes make and wel endite,
Juste and eek daunce, and weel purtreye and write.

(b) If you'll recall, Canacee (the main character of the Squire's Tale) shares her name with the main character of the story that the Man of Law descried in the introduction to his Tale, citing:

But certeinly no word ne writeth he [Chaucer]
Of thilke wikke ensample of canacee,
That loved hir owene brother synfully;
Of swiche cursed stories I sey fy!

(c) The Tale begins with the Host entreating the Squire to "sey somwhat of love; for certes ye / Konnen theron as muche as any man." The Squire replies,

Nay, sire... but I wol seye as I kan
With hertly wyl; for I wol nat rebelle
Agayn youre lust

Is he saying No, that he won't say somewhat of love, or that he doesn't know all that much about love? Either way, the Squire says that he will not rebel against the Host's lust, and then he heads into (1) a weirdo deliberate distortion of a romance, or (2) a story about incest. Either is an odd choice.

(d) A sundry internal discrepancies-- such as the falcon using a bird's preference for worms over "sugre, hony, breed and milk" (the food of the cage) to illustrate "newefangelnesse." Which doesn't make any sense.

(e) Telling her story of romantic woe, the falcon says that she "made vertu of necessitee"-- an echo of King Theseus' speech in the Knight's Tale.

(f) PITEE RENNETH SOONE IN GENTILE HERTE.

I reviewed a number of sources on the Squire's Tale for my annotated bibliography, so I can share some published suggestions, re: the Squire's eccentricities, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

What do you think? Squire's Tale: incomplete or deliberately truncated? Squire: wry? rebellious? confused? inept?