The Canterbury Tales
Book Choice for January 2019, by Geoffrey Chaucer, published c. 1387
Yes. It is September now. Late September, it’s definitely autumn, and while there is golden sunlight, I am homesick, because frankly, we do “fall” way better in Canada. Let’s also pretend that I have been enjoying a sun-drenched two month holiday during which it was just not necessary to blog because I was living life in the moment. It’s better that way. I’m not such a fan of summer but –bip– the record has scratched and it is over anyway. Vorbei.
The Canterbury Tales is a book that most people do hear about. The major golden oldies of English literature are known to almost everyone; a smooth pebble skipped across a pond that makes contact on –Beowulf—ping—Chaucer—boiiing—Shakespeare—dunk!! With a splash, the pebble sinks to the bottom until, like, Jane Austen or something. (Maybe I did miss out by basically not going outside this summer. I’ve forgotten how nature works. Or sounds).
To be fair, I did not start The Canterbury Tales in the summer. I did start it in January, under incredibly ideal circumstances, which will be helpful for you, dear reader, to hear as well. For one thing, I started to read the Canterbury Tales when it was the only book I had access to, in a language I could read. So let that be a lesson to you, if you are in a country you have never been to before, without the prospect of obtaining any other reading material, it is a good time to consider The Canterbury Tales (assuming you have it with you).
As well, I started to read it when I was going on a 10-day holiday where I forbade myself (and I was very right about this) to bring any work. As well, there was no internet where I was staying. So, also, if you want to read the Canterbury Tales, do that, abandon your job and cut yourself off from the modern world. It will help, trust me. Get the circumstances right and you will find that you will soon be driven to reading a nearly 500 page tome (including the necessary explanatory notes!) But I must be real here: even with all the advantages of time to burn, no chores to do, and the only goal of enjoying myself—I still only got three-quarters of the way through before I stalled.
The Canterbury Tales is very much of its time, misogynistically speaking. But hey, it could have been much worse. Chaucer actually thought women were kind of interesting, and that like men, some of them have merit and some don’t. Which is quite fair. With his characters, I did feel Chaucer was being fair at least— I actually felt that from the writing, it was just more the subject matter that bothered me. (It’s my blog so I can be bothered if I want). Ooop–another rape, but don’t worry, it’s not portrayed as a problem for anyone involved. Next story—rape, oh no, not again, what a curious twist! While I can’t remember any example of sexual assault explicitly being played for laughs, it was a nonchalantly repeated occurrence, possibly echoing what people often say, —its just what happened in those days. Ughhhh (see above, me sitting in my garden).
Most people nowadays come to The Canterbury Tales academically, and not really for the enjoyment factor (although when I have heard about the Canterbury Tales, I have heard things in the vein of ‘its a rollicking good time!’). When you read about misogynistic crap, even fictional, in Uni, everyone just bounces over it as part of Ye Olde Plotting Devices. We somehow have developed a stomach, over time, for overlooking things that make us, naturally, squinch up our noses with distaste. We know that we HAVE to read it, because its, like, literature. And literature is valuable. We don’t have to love it, but we have to get through it, if we want to be well read. At many, many times during this collection of tales, which as I said, were not disturbingly graphic (rape was just a matter of course) or incredibly unfair, I still sat back and said “Am I really doing this to myself for fun?”
It may be that you say “hell no” to this great work. I would not blame you, although many would, aghast that you could ignore something GREAT because of your personal tastes. I plodded through. The particular translation I had was really brilliant, even I could tell that David Wright had made an incredible achievement, making the source material understandable, and arranged in cute little stanzas. Like I said, I stopped reading with about 100 pages to go in January, and then in about the end of May I finished it off, using sheer willpower. As this is the way that I read it, and now I am writing about it nearly 9 months later, only a few things stand out to me:
- The Wife of Bath is quite good. (She’s a character that you may hear about before you read the book, often held up as a feminist archetype). She does say a lot of cool stuff, she had a lot of husbands who treated her in varying ways, and well, she was a woman and was given a chance to speak, it was interesting, but it didn’t leave me shocked and changed. In sum, I had always meant to learn more about her, and now I know.
- There is a tale called “The Prioress’s Tale” and it is a disgusting thing about the evilness of Jews—and that’s when you realize that just because a piece of literature is old, doesn’t mean it’s not a piece of crap. The fact this tale was copied for centuries was a horrible waste of parchment, with potentially very real repercussions. I suppose, the fact that it was preserved allows us to see that everywhere in medieval Europe (except I think Spain, before Ferdinand and Isabella) it was completely ok to murder your neighbors because you coveted their things. Now I will interject with a story: once I went to York in England with a school friend. We had a nice day of eating treats in the market and looking at the cathedral. It was lovely. At one point we went up a hill and walked into an old tower which was very cold inside. We poked around and went out, happening to read the British Heritage plaque which said that in 1108 (or thereabouts) all the York folk put their Jewish neighbors into that tower and burned them alive. In thr Prioress’s tale Chaucer has preserved for us the mindset that allowed our ancestors to carry out such deeds! Over and over in almost every major city!*
- Thank goodness that this Oxford edition I have cuts out the several pieces of dry religious writings which were once between the tales, and certain sermon-like poems (Chaucer thought he was very good at writing sermons apparently, and that his audience had infinite time on their hands). I’m so grateful they cut these parts (in the words of the editors “as this is of interest to almost no one today”) or I would never have finished this literary work.
- At one point, I was planning to read my translated version of The Canterbury Tales and then read the original poem in Middle English (I have a copy at home) and compare them and make a video for youtube, and be very detailed and draw from supporting works, etc. But now I’m not going to do that. I’m happy to let Chaucer go!
I cannot say that a very long book made up of alternatingly fairly boring or alarming tales, which actually has no proper wrap-up or ending, is very good. If I had to “rate” it, The Canterbury Tales would get 2 stars–one for the plethora of mentions relating to astrology and horoscopy—it IS interesting that everyone used to believe in this alongside Christianity—and because the poetic form was probably once pretty impressive. But it was not a cracking read. I found it more of an Ugh.
*If you go to the Jewish Museum in Erfurt Germany you can see medieval Jewry from the other side, the thriving, cultural side. But this population was also massacred twice and forced to relocate several times. It is a real learning experience.