Is Arcite pronounced the way it looks to be? Ar-SITE? Or is there a Greek twist to the pronunciation? Please advise - I'm teaching it next week. Thanks!

Overheard at the Tabard Inn 

An English friend sent us this delicious piece of nonsense from Nottingham University, which recently decided to put a trigger warning on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387– 1400) because—can you guess? Because of the ribald bits in some of the twenty-four tales? Because of the aroma of anti-Semitism in oth­ers? Nope. It turns out that Chaucer’s tort was injecting “expressions of Christian faith” into the sprawling, unfinished collection of stories. 

Guilty as charged, we say. After all, Chaucer was a Christian author writing in a Christian country during a period when all of Europe was overwhelmingly Christian. That’s not all. Chaucer’s story is cast as an account of tales told during a pilgrimage, a devotional journey from London to the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Becket, murdered in 1170 on the implicit orders of King Henry II (“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”), was a major intercessional figure for the faithful at the time. The thirty sojourners had gathered at “this gentil hostel­rye,” the Tabard Inn, on the south bank of the Thames, in preparation for their pilgrimage. They decided to entertain themselves (and us) with a tale-telling contest, the winner to be awarded a free dinner on his return to the inn. 

This latest bit of woke insanity was first report­ed by The Mail on Sunday, an English paper. 

Nottingham had attached the silly bulletin to a class on “Chaucer and His Contemporaries,” warning its charges that what they were about to study contained “incidences of violence, mental illness and expressions of Christian faith in the works of Chaucer and fellow medieval writers . . .” We have to admire the tricolon “incidences of violence, mental illness, and expressions of Christian faith,” a trinity, we’d wager, forged here for the first time. 

A university spokesman said that the trigger warning “champions diversity.” Exactly how such an advisory promotes anything other than smug ignorance he forbore to say, probably because he trusted the word “diversity” to work its occult, emollient magic when uttered among susceptible souls. He did add, however, that “Even those who are practising Christians will find aspects of the late-medieval worldview . . . alienating and strange.”We wondered how “alienating and strange” a denizen of the late-medieval world would find an atheist-globalist institution like Nottingham University. 

The historian Jeremy Black, a frequent con­tributor to these pages, was right when he said that “this Nottingham nonsense” is “simulta­neously sad, funny and a demeaning of educa­tion.” The sociologist Frank Furedi—describing the trigger warning as “weird”—expanded on Black’s point: “Since all characters in the stories are immersed in a Christian experience,” Furedi said, “there is bound to be a lot of expressions of faith. The problem is not would-be student readers of Chaucer but virtue-signalling, igno­rant academics.” 

Bingo. Readers of The New Criterion will be intimately familiar with the follies of our virtue­signaling educational depositories, part of the curious afterlife of those now-defunct institu­tions that we used to count on to preserve and transmit the values of our civilization. In one sense, the latest anti-educational spectacle from Nottingham is old hat, just another instance of the decadence we see all around us. If we bother to call attention to it now, it is not for its nov­elty. Rather, we mention it because it is such a good example of what the late philosopher Kenneth Minogue, writing here in June 2003, called “‘Christophobia’ & the West.” 

In this remarkable essay, Minogue not only describes the secularizing process through which “enlightenment” became synonymous with ha­tred of Christianity and hence a rebellion against “the West” generally. He also sketches the main features of the chief contemporary offspring of Christophobia, that university-bred progeny “Olympianism.” Olympianism is a sort of am­phibious confect, resulting in part from the failure of the Marxist-inspired revolutions to deliver on their promise of secular salvation while simultaneously nurturing the spirit of smug re­pudiation that formed one of Marxism’s chief attractions. Minogue describes Olympianism as “the project of an intellectual elite that believes that it enjoys superior enlightenment and that its business is to spread this benefit to those liv­ing on the lower slopes of human achievement.” 

“The overriding passion of the Olympian,” Minogue writes, “is thus to educate the igno­rant,” and “everything is treated in educational terms. Laws for example are enacted not only to shape the conduct of the people, but also to send messages to them. . . . [A]bove all fierce restrictions on raising sensitive ques­tions devant le peuple are . . . part of pedagogic Olympianism.” Hence, for example, trigger warnings about “expressions of Christian faith” in courses about Chaucer. 

Minogue has a number of piquant things to say about the airless but intoxicating ideology of Olympianism—its globalist ambitions, for instance, and consequently its suspicion of the nation-state as an insufficiently enlightened, even, indeed, atavistic form of political organization. Above all, Minogue notes the way Olympianism fuses “political conviction and moral superiority into a single package” that resembles a religion in its totalizing (and generally intolerant) claims. 

In short, what Minogue calls “Olympianism” is the secularized residue of a vacated but still imperious structure. Among other things, it puts “everything through a kind of rationalist strainer so as to remove every item that might count as prejudice, bigotry, and superstition.” The result is not the promised utopia but a situation that leaves us “meandering without a compass in a wonderland of abstractions. It reminds one of Aesop’s frog, who wanted to be as big as an ox, and blew himself up more and more, his skin becoming thinner and thinner, till he burst.” The pilgrims at the Tabard Inn told a number of outlandish tales. None is more scabrous than the empty, self-righteous fantasy brought to bear on their entertainments by an uncomprehending elite more than six hundred years on.

What is the meaning of "y - piked" ?

A haberdasher and a carpenter,

A weaver, a dyer and a tapiser,

Were all y-clothed in a livery

Of a solemn and great fraternity .

Full fresh and new their gear y - piked was ,

Their knives were shaped not with brass ,

But all with silver wrought full clean and well

Their girdles and their pouches every del .

Well seemed each of them a fair burgess

To sitten in a Guild Hall on the dais ,

Every for the wisdom that he can

Was shapely for to be an alderman .

-Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales ."

"this olde cherl with lokkes hoore"

thx.

In cases where words have a consonant followed by -le or -re, would the process of metathesis (as we have in modern pronunciation of said words) have already begun to happen in Chaucer's spoken language, or are they to be spoken exactly as written?

For example "the chambres and the stables weren wide", should those words be pronounced "cham-bruhs" and "stah-bluhs", or should they be pronounced like "cham-bers" and "stah-bels", with the metathesis that we see in their modern equivalents?

Anyone seen one? Thanks

I'll be taking a course this fall in which I will be spending a great amount of time reading Troilus and Criseyde in Middle English. But I first wanted to read a Modern English translation as a guide. Any suggestions?

I understand that Middle English is not modern English and obviously sounded much different to modern English. But there do seem to me to be instances when the accepted difference in attempting to reconstruct the pronunciation is a bit arbitrary with no obvious genesis in a rhyme or anything else.

For example "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote". Why is the accepted reconstruction of Aprille pronounced Arpril and not just April as we would pronounce it in modern English? How can we possibly be sure it was Arpril?

This isn't a deep profound insight or anything, but I'm prepping to teach a course on the Canterbury Tales, and re-reading and thinking about the "Miller's Tale" and prologue, and it's really striking how much both the Miller and Chaucer in his role as the narrator distance themselves and make apologetic disclaimers before the tale begins. The Miller says he's drunk and we should blame "the ale of Southwerk" if his tale is offensive, and then he preemptively defends his tale to the Reeve, saying that look, it's just a story, it's not a commentary on all wives, and then Chaucer as narrator mentions several times that the Miller isn't high-class, so what do you expect from him, and then Chaucer as narrator steps in to say that his hands are tied, he has to retell the story as it happened, and then he deflects and says that if you don't like t read something else, and finally he says listen it's all a joke don't take it too seriously.

Like, he is really piling on the defensive disclaimers here!

Are you aware of any cliometric work (i.e. quantitative analysis of historical data) on the number of pilgrims going to Canterbury in the 14th-15th century? Would be fascinating to see if the Tales had an impact on the number of pilgrims going to Canterbury. More generally, do you think it's possible that this is the case or was the circulation of the tales at the time too limited / pilgrims already very numerous for it to have had an impact?

I had always avoided Chaucer during my graduation and master's. However, the decision to read literature from scratch made me revisit him. I finally understand why Chaucer is known as the father of English literature. Even though he is still not my favorite poet, I have gained tremendous respect for his works and his crucial contributions to English literature and language.

This is the article I wrote to summarize and simplify the life, works & significance of Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Age of Chaucer - His Life, Works & their Significance.

I like good storytelling without unnecessary extra details.

Do you think I can jump right into individual stories in the Canterbury tales without introduction prior to each story ?

Take the wife of bath's tale as an example. I hear from many people that the prologue for that tale is longer than the story itself. I wonder whether I need that extra detail.

Thank you.

Specifically the one by John Lane. Is it worth reading? I was disappointed to find Chaucer left it incomplete, but I don’t want to read an ending that isn’t up to the standard of the original material.

accounts, etc. not concerning literature

https://archive.org/details/chaucerliferecor0000crow_a5y8/page/n8/mode/1up

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5116459b2e308b5ec45af37c515c2832b307abba81e9a91bc764aaf8acded4e6.jpg

Towards the end of the passage in Book IV of Troilus where he berates Pandarus for his foolish advice to forget and move on from Criseyde in light of her being swapped with the Greeks for Antenor (see extract below!)...

What do these lines mean? Who is 'hir'? I.e., does Troilus refer to Pandarus' elusive lover - although we are led to believe that Pandarus is not constant in his love at all, so why would Troilus reference Pandarus' lover in this way? Or, does this refer to Criseyde?

Many thanks!!!!

Extract:

Why hastow not don bisily thy might
To chaungen hir that doth thee al thy wo?
Why niltow lete hir fro thyn herte go?
Why niltow love an-other lady swete,
That may thyn herte setten in quiete?

To what extent was medieval England democratic in its local government? Who was legally entitled to vote for an alderman in the city of London? Also, what prerogatives did aldermen have once they were in office? Were they just administrative or were they actually able to legislate?

Bruegel the Elder

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f895591dc8eb4c3ac7b144322428aebd74d18c6a328f032ec3d758c3bc862f22.jpg

I just started Canterbury Tales and I'm greatly enjoying it. I got to the Cook's Tale and was sad to see it wasn't finished, especially after how wild the setup was. I was aware that the Canterbury Tales in general wasn't finished, but didn't know that some of the tales didn't have endings. Is there any indication where the story was going from Chaucer's notes or something?

"... Known as a ‘portifory,’ or breviary, it was a small volume containing a variety of excerpted religious texts, such as psalms and prayers, designed to be carried about easily (as the name demonstrates, it was portable).1 It was worth about 20 shillings, the price of two cows, or almost three months’ pay for a carpenter, or half of the ransom of an archer captured by the French ..."

"... this was an era of economic and social change and development, of ‘newfangleness’—a word that Chaucer himself would later coin ..."

"... The Battle of Poitiers in 1356 had ended in the English capturing huge numbers of prisoners: receipts from those prisoners, not including the king and his son, came to at least £300,000—three times what Edward III had spent on this expensive war over the previous year—and the gains also included horses, armour, clothes, and other objects taken from the defeated.24 This pitched battle, then, proved extraordinarily lucrative even before one begins to consider the unique political capital that the English gained by imprisoning the French king ..."

"... Galeazzo Visconti died at Pavia on 4 August. He had ruled jointly with his brother Bernabò, and his death initially allowed Bernabò even freer reign, until Galeazzo’s son, Giangaleazzo, executed a coup against his uncle in 1385, a turn of Fortune’s wheel memorialized in the ‘Monk’s Tale.’ ..."

adding:

Chaucer was captured in France and ransomed back, King Charles paying a portion of the ransom at 16 pounds.

After 1066, the pound was divided into twenty shillings or 240 pennies. It remained so until decimalization on 15 February 1971.

Hi, I have a test on Friday and was wondering if anyone did annotations for Canterbury Tales: the Prologue and can share them with me so I can study. It would be greatly appreciated.

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Hello! I am trying to find this passage in the Jill Mann edition of the Canterbury Tales and was hoping some of you may be able to help. Thank you!

New member here, rediscovering an old fascination with Chaucer and with The Canterbury Tales. Can anyone recommend an interlinear text for The Tales?

Also, I'm throughly enjoying all the threads in this subreddit. This is wonderful!

Despite the Canterbury tales being unfinished, who do you think should have won the contest?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/books/geoffrey-chaucer-rape-charge.html