From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
1/2 Queen of Ambridge amateur theatricals, Lynda Snell, takes charge of this barnstorming new adaptation of Chaucer’s classic tales. Join the cast of The Archers to enjoy stories of courtly love, deadly rivalry and boisterous sex - with a little bit of magic thrown in for good measure.

“A festive feast of spellbinding stories and bawdy banter … Another Lynda Snell triumph!” – The Borchester Echo

Written by Geoffrey Chaucer
Dramatised by Nick Warburton

Director …. Kim Greengrass
Producer …. Alison Hindell

Tellers of the Tales:
Ruth Archer & Chaucer .... Felicity Finch
David Archer & the Host .... Timothy Bentinck
Kirsty Miller .... Annabelle Dowler
Eddie Grundy .... Trevor Harrison
Lilian Bellamy .... Sunny Ormonde
Jazzer McCreary .... Ryan Kelly

The Knight’s Tale:
Theseus .... Nick Barber
Woman of Thebes .... Sunny Ormonde
Jailer .... Trevor Harrison
Palamon .... Barry Farrimond
Arcite .... James Cartwright
Emily .... Emerald O’Hanrahan
Soldier & Jolly Theban .... Ryan Kelly
Gatekeeper .... Timothy Bentinck
Diana .... Felicity Finch

The Miller’s Tale:
John .... Timothy Bentinck
Alison .... Annabelle Dowler
Nicholas .... James Cartwright
Absolon .... Nick Barber

The Wife of Bath’s Tale:
Knight .... Barry Farrimond
King Arthur .... Trevor Harrison
Queen .... Annabelle Dowler
Crone .... Carole Boyd

The Sailor’s Tale:
Merchant .... James Cartwright
Monk .... Nick Barber
Wife .... Emerald O’Hanrahan

Other roles played by members of the company.

Studio Managers .... Andy Partington & Vanessa Nuttall
Production Co-ordinators .... Sally Lloyd & Mel Ward

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000...

***MAJOR SPOILERS ALERT***

An essay that I wrote nearly a decade ago about The Canterbury Tales and its portrayal of women. It was for a course that I did, so the language is a bit academic and phoney.

The Canterbury Tales is a 14th century poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer. The poem offers us a vivid portrait of 14th century English society and the prevalent social order while also shedding light on the importance of and attitudes towards religion and status of and attitudes towards women in medieval society. The poem begins with a general introduction of the setting and an array of characters. At the beginning of The General Prologue, the narrator is resting at the Tabard inn in Southwark before his journey on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. It is spring time and the drought of March has given way to the sweet showers of April which has inspired people to go on pilgrimages. The inn where the narrator is resting is visited by 29 other pilgrims. The narrator meets the lot of them and gets to know them quite well. The narrator is a devout Christian and there is a sense of fellowship with the pilgrims who have arrived at the Tabard inn. The narrator proceeds to describe each and every pilgrim of the party beginning with the Knight.

It is interesting that the narrator introduces the chivalrous Knight, his well-mannered son (the squire) and the son's servant at the beginning itself. This could indicate that the narrator was acknowledging the Knight’s social status. The Knights represented the upper classes of the 14th century and were generally looked up to by one and all. The narrator is highly impressed by the knight who has won many battles but is meek in manner. The narrator then proceeds to introduce the religious order represented by the Nun/Prioress with excellent table manners, the monk with modern ideas and the friar (a religious beggar) who absolved people in return for gifts.

The religious order is described with both veneration as well as contempt. Even though Chaucer is extremely impressed by the nun/prioresses’ impeccable table manners, he also seems to be slightly irritated by her overreaction at the treatment of animals. The monk is interested in a life of luxury and has turned his back on ideas of self-denial and restraint, instead choosing a life of luxury and pleasure. It is impossible to know what Chaucer actually feels about the Monk and his ways as the monks’ ways are merely described as facts and the poet passes no judgment. The friars were beggars who were allowed to beg within a certain limit. However, Chaucer describes the friar as a cunning and lecherous man who begged beyond his allowed limits. He would deal with rich folks to receive gifts and avoid dealing with the poor at all. Chaucer describes the friar as representative of the corruption that has seeped into the prevalent religious order in medieval England.

We are then introduced to the pompous merchant, the student who is an ardent pursuer of education, the sergeant of the law and the Franklin who believes in having a good time. While we get detailed and vivid descriptions about the above mentioned people, Chaucer is not that kind to some of the lower classes of pilgrims. The haberdasher, dyer, carpenter, tapestry maker, weaver and their cook who are described only in terms of their tools and polished gear. This was also the case with the description of the squire’s servant who is described in terms of the weapons that he carries on his body. Also among the pilgrims is the shrewd skipper of Maudelayne, the skilled physician, the Wife of Bath who is a deaf clothier, the noble parson, his devout brother, the bawdy miller, the manciple, the cunning reeve (a foreman), the dishonest summoner and the pardoner who rode with the summoner.

There are a few instances in The Canterbury Tales which may point towards the importance of religion in medieval Britain. The narrator is impressed by the Knight who has carried his sword across all the lands of Christendom and even the lands of the heathen. This probably establishes the narrator's bigotry. The Prioress’s Tale which has a story about a Jew murdering a schoolboy is another example of religious bigotry in The Canterbury tales. In the Second Nun’s Tale Cecilia rebels against paganism, idolatry and continues to preach and teach Christianity even after she receives three strokes to the neck to kill her. The Second Nun’s Tale is an example of a religious biography. At the end of The Canterbury Tales there is a retraction or an apology of sorts by Chaucer. This apology might have been attached to the poem due to the fact that some of the tales narrated by the pilgrims during the pilgrimage involved farcical portrayal of infidelity, sanctioned lustful behavior and open suspicion and criticism of the prevalent religious order. These might have been perceived as blasphemous by the authorities. In The Knights Tale, Emily the Fair is portrayed as helpless even as Arcite and Palamon fight for her hand. It is interesting that Emily is unaware of the rivalry between the two men until the Duke of Thesus confronts the two fighting men. It must be noted that neither the Duke of Thesus nor the two men asks Emily the Fair whom she prefers or whether she prefers either of the two men. Even as Arcite and Palamon get ready to fight a tournament for Emily’s hand, Emily prays to Diana to make her a virgin for life and wishes to walk the woodlands wild and not to be a wife or be with child.

Women are often portrayed as untrustworthy and easily vulnerable to seduction in The Canterbury Tales. The women in The Miller’s Tale, The Reeve’s Tale and The Merchant’s Tale exemplify the sexually liberated female characters in the poem. These stories may also represent the male anxiety regarding the fidelity of the females. The female characters may also represent many of the negative stereotypes of women that existed in medieval England. In The Miller’s Tale the astrology student who stays for rent at a carpenter’s house makes passes at the carpenter’s wife. However, the carpenter’s wife does go to church after a rendezvous with the student to “search her conscience and do the work of Christ” where she is also courted by a parish clerk named Absalon. In the Reeve’s tale a pair of bible clerks beds the wife and daughter of a cheating miller. The clerk reacts to The Miller’s Tale with the following words: “guests who stay the night are dangerous. A man can’t be too careful when he brings a stranger in among his private things”. This may represent male anxiety about his woman’s fidelity, but the tale is also a morality tale where the dishonest miller is tricked by the Bible clerks and is taught a lesson. In both these tales, Chaucer combines the serious with the farcical. The Manciple concludes his tale of jealousy and murder by addressing his fellow pilgrims in the following “Never tell anyone in all your life that any other has enjoyed his wife, for he will hate you mortally”. The Monk narrates the tale of Samson (who was betrayed by his lover Dalia) and advises men to hold back secrets from their wives unless they want to sacrifice the safety of their limbs and lives like Samson.

The Merchant’s Tale, which is a fabliau, has May, the beautiful wife of January, the old knights wife climb the pear tree to make love with Damian, the knight’s squire. Not only does she make love to Damian but she also indirectly cures her husband’s blindness when King Pluto gives him back his eyesight as he is shocked by the act of lust. January and May are named after the seasons probably indicating that May who represents spring triumphs over January who represents cold and winter.

However, at no point does Chaucer judge or criticize the women for their amoral behavior in any of these tales. We cannot conclude that a view of the characters who narrates the tales in the poem indicates Chaucer’s own views on female infidelity or his own male anxiety.

The Wife of Bath is the strongest female character in The Canterbury Tales and has very strong views on marriage and maidenhood and the role of women in society. The Wife of Bath expresses her disdain for religious order very early in her tale when she says that there are no more fairies in Briton like in the time of King Arthur, but instead it is the friars who walk the length of the land and the women have to fear the friars as they might lay claim upon the women’s virtue. She herself admits that she has been married five times. The very fact that The Wife of Bath has married five times shows that she has little or no regard for the teachings of the church which prevent women from remarrying. However, her disdain for the religious order does not in anyway indicate her feelings about God. “For Hadde God commanded maydenhede, thanne hadde he dampned weddyng with dede, and certainly if seed were never sown, How ever could virginity be grown?” she says. She also says that both Abraham and Jacob had several brides. She also demands to know about a time or text where God disparages or sets prohibition upon marriages. The Wife of Bath’s use of God to defend her five marriages and her promiscuity shows that despite her disdain for the religious order and its teachings, she is actually a very devout person.

The Wife of Bath also resorts to provocation when she wonders aloud about the uses of the male and female genitalia. She contends that male and female genitalia were not simply to tell a male from a female or for excretion but also for propagation. She does defend herself by saying that her words are not intended to offend but only to amuse.

Despite all her talk on behalf of women, the Wife of Bath has no illusions about the sanctity of a woman’s behavior. In her prologue she is candid about ways in which a knowing woman can prove that her husband is at fault.

The Wife of Bath’s prologue probably enhances the male anxiety regarding the fidelity of females when she says that “And so I tell this tale to every man, Its all for sale and let him win who can. No empty- handed man can lure a bird.” In many ways, The Wife of Bath is symbolic of many negative stereotypes of women as gold diggers and lustful creatures that existed during the medieval times.

But so candid is The Wife of Bath about her own marriages and woman’s dominance in the bedroom that one cannot help but feel that Chaucer portrays sex as celebratory (despite the obvious economic connotations) and women in particular as liberated individuals. In fact when The Wife of Bath ends her tale by begging Jesus to hear her prayer to cut short the lives of men who refuse to be governed by women, one cannot help but feel that Chaucer intended more through his portrayal of the Wife of Bath than to simply perpetrate existing negative stereotypes about women. We must remember that Chaucer refrains from passing judgment on the Wife of Bath’s character and in The Friar’s Prologue (which follows The Wife of Bath’s tale) the Friar, who is part of the religious order says that much of what was spoken by the Wife of Bath was extremely impressive.

Griselda in The Clerk’s Tale is an example of a submissive female character in the poem. In a way Griselda’s character is the exact opposite of The Wife of Bath who has many nontraditional views on the role of women in 14th century British society. She continues to sacrifice her children in complete obedience to her husband who is testing her loyalty towards him by continuously torturing her, first by making her believe that her kids would be murdered and secondly by taking another wife for himself. But Griselda remains loyal throughout the torture inflicted upon her. Griselda is unimaginably virtuous (in fact when Walter, the Marquis first lays eyes on her, it is her perceived goodness and virtuousness that attracts him to her and not her beauty.). But the clerk himself at the end of the tale reminds the women among the pilgrims that his tale does not imply that all of them should follow Griselda’s example and live a life of virtuousness. But that everyone should be virtuous and constant in their own degree. However, in the envoy to his tale, the clerk recommends that women indulge themselves in over the top behavior and enjoy themselves to their hearts content.

The Canterbury Tales mostly portrays women as untrustworthy especially when it comes to their sexuality.

This was my first (and possibly my last) Chaucer, and was a tough read. The English language has changed considerably since these stories, most in verse but a couple long ones in prose, were published between 1386 and 1390. The spelling, pronunciation, and many words he used have changed, with many words having become obsolete or changed their meanings. I'm glad there was a glossary of this "famous (Walter William) Skeat edition. The stories vary in quality--some are very good and some just okay--but they illustrate why Geoffrey Chaucer is the leading English poet. It's a classic of classics that demonstrates his mastery of rhythm.

Like two other Medieval landmarks, the Decameron and 1001 Nights, the Canterbury Tales are a collection of short stories drawn together by a framing story. In this case it’s a group of pilgrims from all different parts of society, and they’re telling stories to pass the time on their way to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. Here he is getting killed:


Fatality!

Chaucer only managed to finish 23 of a planned 120 stories, so that’s actually a pretty bad job; his big innovation was that the 23 he did finish created real, distinct characters representing a cross-section of society. The hypocritical religious figure the Pardoner, who’s basically running a protection racket for the soul - and we can see in him how jaded people have gotten about organized religion - the drunken Miller, who tells one of several lengthy fart jokes; and of course the Wife of Bath, Chaucer’s greatest creation.


don't want no scrubs

She’s looking for her sixth husband; she cheerfully admits to using sex to get what she wants; she has a dim view of men except as a means to an end.

By God! if women hadde written stories,
As clerkes han withinne hire oratories,
They wolde han writen of men moore wikkednesse
Than all the mark of Adam may redresse.

What she’s saying is that men control the narrative; when it’s her turn to speak she has a lot to say.

There are also, as mentioned, a number of fart jokes. The Miller's Tale contains perhaps history's first description of analingus as Absalon "kissed [this one lady's] naked arse, most savorously." The Summoner's Tale is an examination of the age-old question of how to divide a fart into twelve parts. Don't worry, they figure it out.

2018 Reading Challenge: an allegory
The Rory Gilmore Challenge

Ok imma gonna tackle this classic. I’m fairly certain I cheated on this test in high school.

My only regret is that the copy I read had no grand explanatory introduction or any footnotes to help understand the political intrigues Chaucer hid in his writing. My copy did not have a barcode, so I just picked one. I should have bought the one in the photo.

Another - 'I am so glad to get this off my book bucket list' - book that was very hard for me to understand. The stories were often grounded in concepts that I think modern readers may have problems understanding, but I still recognize that this book is one of the great literary works of all time. I mark it a 'favorite' due to the fact that it is a 'key' to understanding other works of literature. I am sure this narrative form of story telling has influenced untold works of art.

(Thoughts on the Modern English translation by Nevill Coghill - I haven't read the original yet)

------‐--------------------------------------------

Come my friends, step right in!
There is plenty of room at the Tabard Inn;
We offer you the finest wines and ales,
In preparation for a cornucopia of tales!

---------------------------------------------------

The Canterbury Tales is a selection of 24 stories shared between a group of people on a pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Saint Thomas à Becket (56 miles from London), and its magnificence relies on three main elements which I will attempt to explicate as follows:

The manifold characters contained in this work is the first remarkable feat of Chaucer's genius; right at the Prologue, with its stream of introductions, we become acquainted with a whole compendium of English medieval life: knight, cook, monk, merchant, shipman, nuns, among many others. They all meet at The Tabard Inn, and their host promises to serve them as a guide on their voyage, even telling them that the one who tells the best tale will win a free meal on their way back. This section sets the tone to which the stories will eventually follow.

Once our journey begins, a myriad of genres gets covered throughout - from enticing romances,  thoughtful moral tales, harrowing tragedies to side-splitting satires and comedies. As the poet John Dryden pointed out, "Here is God's plenty", and right he was. Chaucer undoubtedly used The Decameron (1353) as his main inspiration for framing his stories, but I dare say that he went one step further here, as the witty irony that pervades this work shows - the fruit of his acute observation of the human mind/body in the late 1300's.

Paired with his intellect, we can also point at a wide amount of sources which he used, and they can be noticed on almost every page of the Tales. We are sometimes even bombarded with references ranging from the Biblical, Historical, Mythical, Philosophical, Poetical  and even Astrological/Alchemical knowledge of those days. It is worth noting that he was the first author to mention two of his contemporaries from the Continent: Dante and Petrarch. Nevill's notes (Penguin Classics edition) are a treasure trove when it comes to uncovering obscure references and allusions, and provides us with a panoply of details that any modern reader would find quite difficult to understand and/or uncover. Suffice to say, Geoff my good old chap was a very well-read man.

In conclusion: Be it for its social commentary, its smartness or its exuberance - not to mention its extravagance - one has to acknowledge the grandeur of such a book. A timeless work of art indeed.

My biggest fear about this book was that it would be like The Pilgrim's Progress. Although they followed a similar format, they couldn't have been more different for me. The Pilgrim's Progress was boring and preachy, whereas this was delightfully bawdy.

There are many translations, from Middle English, to Victorian verse, to modern day prose. So sample a few and read what you're comfortable with. Then dive in and enjoy the stories. They can be read independently of one another, but often play off each other so they're best read in order, though this differs between editions. If you happen to hit one you don't like, feel free to skip it, as there'll be another riotous tale along soon enough.

These can be read lightly, laughing at the rudeness and humour, or studied more in depth, to find hidden subtleties and meanings. It's the sort of book that re-reading will enrich your experience and it's one I'm glad to have tried for my first time.

So don't be scared of stuffy or complex tales because it's 600 years old. Really, not that much has changed today.

Okay, so the language is a bit strange, you don't understand all the words, but go with it. Don't read it in a modernization and miss all of Chaucer's magnificent language (and much of his sly humor). You'll get used to it pretty soon, I promise you. And if you have any musicality in your soul, the cadences and richness of his imagery will captivate you.

If you thought the 14th century was prudish about its language and strict about its morality, you're in for a shock. Chaucer's richness includes plenty of chivalry and romance, but there's also a good helping of down and dirty sex. His characters are memorable, his stories are fascinating, his appeal is universal.

That's Chaucer the teller of tales, and the best reason to read Chaucer -- he's just plain fun. But there's a serious literary reason to read him, too. Chaucer was the first major writer to write in a vernacular English that we can read and understand today. (When you think about it, it's astonishing that language has changed so little in 600-plus years.) He has been credited by some with essentially inventing the English language, and while that's a bit of an exaggeration, it's not much of one. His influence on English poetry is immense -- when you read him you're reading the start of English poetry, the man who set the stage for Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and on and on.

So whether you read him primarily to understand and appreciate his immense importance to English language and literature, or whether you read him for pure pleasure, or whether in the best of all possible worlds you read him for both reasons, doesn't matter.

As long as you do read him.

While not as approachable as high school teacher's would have you believe, the Canterbury Tales is an entertaining mix of history, lyricism, and satire. In my opinion Chaucer missed a major opportunity to add a pastoral component to his work. The tales either all take place in disparate locations and times, telling of old events and veering toward the more recent recollections of his time, without going into much detail in regard to setting. But they, none of them, seem to immerse the reader in the physical universe, sounding often like people talking at you instead of immersing you in a poetic epic. I found a lot of Chaucer's set pieces somewhat confined in contrast with the works of Dante and Homer, whose writing offer a great sense of expansive wonder.

Aside from the magnificent Prologue to the Tales, the storytellers themselves often seem like floating heads. I would have loved more interpolations, more arguments, debates between the characters and physical descriptions. The lack of description gives the poetry a more austere feel. If you can put up with five hundred pages of rhyming end lines, you will be able to return to this work with much to gain from subsequent re-readings. The original Middle English is less readable than interesting in my view. Why not smooth out your reading experience with a modern rendition? All you will be missing will be the antiquated phraseology and stiff structural differences. I am not a purist when it comes to Chaucer, though I will be hard-pressed to get into his other works like Troilus and Criseyde. I can only take so much Middle English before I tire of rearranging words and meanings to render them intelligible. You could puzzle your way through the manuscript if you want to brag that you read it in the original, but nobody is going to be impressed. It is a distracting way to read until you become so proficient in it that you can do it without thinking. Which I do not have the patience for.

Similarly, I am loathe to start Spenser's Faerie Queene for the same reason, but I know I will eventually relent. Medieval works of the imagination hold a special place in my heart, and I would love to delve more into similar epics.

As for my favorite tales, I really enjoyed the Prologue, the Knight's Tale, and the Canon Yeoman's Tale. I would have liked to see more chivalry, alchemy, and ribaldry, and less squabbling between wives and husbands. Chaucer apparently had a lot to say about the roles within the bonds of matrimony. Like literary fiction today, adultery is an endless topic in fiction/ poetry, one writers never seem to tire of describing ad nauseum. I recommend giving this a try if you were exhausted by sections of it in school or were forced to resort to Cliff's notes. The poetry is engaging in places, and the message always devout, even when the scene described is rather crude. He started a fun contest between two of his storytellers, where one disparages the other in his tale and the other responds by criticizing the other's profession in his. I would have liked to see more of this intertextuality, like a call and response between the participants of the tales, rather than straight, uninterrupted storytelling. Considering that legends and folklore were rife in other medieval works, Chaucer seemed too squeamish to mingle demons and faeries into his stories. He was more concerned with the mundane details of ordinary life, which bookend most of the tales. Occasionally something violent happens, and someone loses a head, or someone gets mooned, and the devil makes a brief appearance, but after a few hundred pages, the characters telling the Tales all blend together. The Prologues introducing each should have done more to develop the characters, to alleviate some of this blurring lines between their personalities. But perhaps I approached the work from too modern a perspective. I find it strange he called it Canterbury Tales instead of Canterbury Poems. There were other collections of prose tales and oral tales at the time, and they were not all poetic in nature. But this was before the printing press, a normal person might be lucky to come across five authentic manuscripts in a lifetime I would think.

Today we have the opposite problem. There is too much text, too many books, and the literature we have access to, along with the myriad commentary, reviews and criticisms, make it impossible to digest the culture of today or assign values to it. What is good literature anymore? What is worth preserving? We seem ready to preserve every Tom, Dick, and Harry's cooking blog, and every angsty fanfiction ever written in the heat of bed-wetting adolescence for the sake of a posterity which is wholly imaginary. I wonder if future generations in the postapocalyptic landscape will have to construct their shelters out of the useless books we filled up the world with during this generation because there will be no other building materials among the desiccated remnants of civilization.

A modern equivalent might be the Spoon River Anthology, which I also recommend. It would make a good college paper, contrasting these two works of poetic fiction. Makes you wonder if in 800 years people will be reading Robinson and Whitman and revering them like we revere Chaucer.

So why read Chaucer in this day and age? Because it reminds us that human nature persists, and that storytelling is an art that never dies, only changes form. Poetry is also meant to be a form of narrative art. We so often today consider poetry a way to describe feelings through free verse, subscribing to haiku brevity or the sappy sentimentality of postmodern multimedia poetry, where slang is mingled with gross intimacy to produce a quaint and vague irritant to our sensibilities. But for thousands of years people sat down and set words to meter as if language were an instrument they were playing. These constraints forced their narrative down a narrow track which carved a deep crevice through history and etches its way into the soul if you study it to extract the meaning and suck the marrow from its skeleton. I wish there were more epic poems being written today.

Magnificent Geoffrey Chaucer. What matters most to me about him?

How He Could Write

How he could write about people!

What do these characters have in common? The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others -- they don't simply bring their tales. They reek of individuality, quirkiness, human wackiness.

Not a single one is a type (unlike characters that are all too easy to find in some fast-moving novels written NOW).

How He Could Survive

Geoffrey survived The Plague, for heaven's sake. In England, the Black Death killed 2 million people.

Yet Chaucer survived and thrived well enough to write an outrageous book... bristling with verve, lustiness, satire, hilarity, adventure.

How I Would Love to Shake Hands with Geoffrey Chaucer!

My hunch? He had more vitality in his left pinky fingernail...
Than many a well fed, pampered, privileged, TikTok fancier living today.

Imagine shaking hands with Chaucer. Imagine dancing with him.
At least we can read his immortal Tales.

welcome to...THE JANTERUARY TALES.

get it? like the canterbury tales? only january?

anyway.

this is an installment of PROJECT LONG CLASSICS, by which i make intimidating books less scary by reading them over the course of a month and bothering all of you.

it's been a while since i read an old-timey-language one. let's give it a shot.


DAY 1: PROLOGUE
you can tell i'm being really smart and brave because i'm actually reading a prologue.

this is basically an introduction to a cast of what seems likes 92 characters. i hope none of this is on the quiz.


DAY 2: THE KNIGHT'S TALE
they honestly must have built women different in the olden days. i don't know anyone who's hot enough that just hanging around in her own yard can cause two heroic men to become so obsessed they essentially curse themselves.

in other words, you'd be surprised how much this story from 1000 years ago has in common with clockwork princess.


DAY 3: THE MILLER'S TALE
oh thank god it's a short one.

reading yesterday's in several-page batches to try to ensure i was actually understanding the weird words and not just letting my eyes go over the sentences was a real struggle.

this story has everything: the c word, cucking, trumpian "grab them by the [redacted]," kissing a literal asshole, pranks, tomfoolery, flattery, farts, song, grievous bodily harm, and more hijinks than you can possibly imagine.


DAY 4: THE REEVE'S TALE
i doubt there's any competing with yesterday's, but this one is at least even shorter.


DAY 5: THE COOK'S TALE
mercifully this one is like 2 pages long. thank god, because any discussion of what passed for food in ye olden days would function like a horror story to me.

also i'm famously bad at doing this project on weekends, so.


DAY 6: THE MAN OF LAW'S TALE
this is very jesus-y (boring) but also about a framejob for a murder planned directly by satan himself (perfect).

it also taught me that there used to be a word called "eggement" that meant incitement (like egging on), so now i'm going to mourn that forever.


DAY 7: THE WIFE OF BATH'S TALE
for some reason this one is roughly 1120 times easier to read than the previous 6.

or maybe i'm just getting used to reading it.

probably the first option.


DAY 8: THE FRIAR'S TALE
this seems like it's going to be very exciting (about thievery) but it is not (mostly just two guys talking to each other about how bad they are and then becoming good guys).


DAY 9: THE SOMPNOUR'S TALE
step one: google what the hell a sompnour even is.

at one point in this a man proves he isn't drunk by killing a child with a bow and arrow. at another point a guy tells a friar he has something privately hidden in his pants and when the friar goes to grab it he farts in his hand.

i cannot stress enough how unprepared i was for how unrelentingly insane these stories are.


DAY 10: THE CLERK'S TALE
this is about a guy who picks some girl to be his wife out of nowhere and she's like "sure i'll do my duty and marry you" and he proceeds to spend the rest of their lives putting her through good wife tests like "will you let a guy kill our daughter just because i said so?"

men are a plague.


DAY 11: THE MERCHANT'S TALE
back to back wife stories...chaucer should have had a more critical editor. switch the order, my guy!


DAY 12: THE SQUIRE'S TALE
so yes, i skipped a day for the first time of this installment yesterday. but in my defense i spent a saturday drinking red wine and watching old movies. if i also picked this up i would have broken Being Cultured On A Weekend regulations.


DAY 13: THE FRANKLIN'S TALE
the franklin (whatever that is) (don't worry i looked it up like an intellectual) spends a solid portion of this talking about various times from history that large groups of women have died rather than swipe their v-card, and he keeps being like why even keep going? who needs more examples? and then gives more. i don't know sir! not me! enough!



DAY 14: THE DOCTOR'S TALE
if my dad was like "hey sorry i have to kill you," my reaction would not be to be like "ok, fair enough. all i ask is i get some space to complain about having to die, as is any murdered daughter's right according to the bible."

but then i would also not prefer death over losing my virginity, nor would i be one of the mob of a thousand people who rushes in to say her dad doesn't deserve prison because he sliced her head off and brought it to court for that valiant cause. so i guess i just wouldn't do that well in chaucer's time.


DAY 15: THE PARDONER'S TALE
for a guy whose title is pardoner, this fella sure doesn't seem very forgiving to those of us who may enjoy a glass of wine or two on occasion...


DAY 16: THE SHIPMAN'S TALE
finally, a GOOD wife story (this wife loves partying and buying clothes and creating debts in order to do so)


DAY 17: THE PRIORESS' TALE
sera in the comments said "When you get to the Prioress' Tale, be sure to read it out loud for full effect. In as prissy a voice as you can manage. :)"

i have to second that recommendation.


DAY 18: CHAUCER'S TALE OF SIR THOPAS
a fun mystery about this book is that when you get to a short one, there's a 50/50 chance on whether it's actually short or it's been abruptly redacted.

this one is mostly describing a #OOTD before ending midsentence.


DAY 19: CHAUCER'S TALE OF MELIBOEUS
this one isn't even in verse. not a rhyme to be found. just a collection of the longest paragraphs you've ever seen in your life.

it just feels wrong.


DAY 20: THE MONK'S TALE
this is like a tale multipack. all of the ancient world A-listers are here to teach us a moral lesson in meter via a monk.


DAY 21: THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE
do nuns just...receive a complimentary priest? pretty good deal if so.

i always thought it was kind of a short end of the stick situation to trade your life to god in exchange for a weird outfit you have to wear forever, but this sweetens the pot a bit.


DAY 22: THE SECOND NUN'S TALE
i don't know what the nun math is here, but i'm just going to ignore it.

if i'm granted a wish by an angel...i'm sorry but there's no way i'm using that wish to convert my brother to christianity. i'm wishing for more wishes. or a gift card.


DAY 23: THE CANON'S YEOMAN'S TALE
it is funny that we started out this book with tales from guys like "The Doctor!" and "The Cook!" and now we're at the old timey equivalent of "Your Childhood Babysitter's Neighbor" and "Your Sister's Boyfriend's Cousin." it's like when your mom tells you a story and it starts "you remember your aunt's old boyfriend's daughter." no i do not.


DAY 24: THE MANCIPLE'S TALE
i sh*t you not, this book actually just contained the words "he pouped in his horn." and it gets even better. it means burped.

they just don't make phrases like they used to.


DAY 25: THE PARSON'S TALE
can't believe we're finishing this book today. it feels like just centuries ago i began torturing myself by struggling to find meaning in vaguely spellchecked middle english for 40 minutes a day, with only butt jokes as my reward.

just kidding. butt jokes are a good reward.

aw, man. this was a straight up sermon.


OVERALL
i thought i had a 0% chance of enjoying this at all, and instead it was 50/50 on whether each story contained a moment of pure insanity that would make my entire day, with the alternative of being both boring and difficult to read! i'll call that a good time on average.
rating: 3.5