#15 - The Canterbury Tales

Literature and storytelling are intertwined. The format may be different, but the meaning is the same. The Iliad was originally an epic poem to be recited, not read off of a page. Oedipus Rex is a play, or rather a trilogy of plays to be performed for an audience. The oldest of the books on the list, ones like Beowulf, are oral tradition stories that have been spoken for centuries before finally being committed to paper. This is being brought to mind as I finish the Canterbury Tales, a story about storytelling, as I contemplate making the move to oral storytelling as opposed to the written word. I am speaking, of course, of vlogging. In the next weeks I will be trying to create video versions of these first 16 posts, and then creating both a written and video version for each subsequent one. They will be painfully similar, if not identical to each other. Every time I've written these I've debated whether or not I wanted to keep the blog private - simply a storage place for my opinions - or something to be shared. With vlogs being posted on Youtube (on my account NortonFord), the choice will no longer lie with me. If they are to be seen, they shall be. I take solace in the fact that the vast majority of Youtube videos rest in piece, being seen only by people who mistype their search queries. On the other hand, I'm excited to get to return to and reflect on my past reads, and to get to do a bit of talking along with it.

With that said, let us turn to today's fare - The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer. The edition I have before me is the Bantam Classic, the same series that produced my copy of Jane Eyre. Here again I stumble upon ink blots (sadly no good Rorschach ones) and awful type. Here too I hit one of the most painful concessions I have made thus far - this edition contained only 9 of the 24 of the 120 stories that the Canterbury Tales were to hold. If that seemed nonsensical to some, please bear with me. The Canterbury Tales says in its preamble that the pilgrims (one of which being Chaucer himself) were each to tell 4 stories - 2 on the way to Canterbury and 2 on the way back. At his death Chaucer had only completed 24 (not even one for every pilgrim), with a couple of those not being entirely cleaned up or tied together. These 24 are not found to be in any true order, as the fragments of manuscripts that have been found have provided only some semblance of order, such as the Knight being followed by the Miller. Of these 24, some are more important than others in a critical light. The 9 that are in my edition (Prologue, Knight, Miller, Wife of Bath, Merchant, Franklin, Pardoner, Prioress, Nun's Preist) are arguably the best selection of them. With that in mind, I begrudgingly stuck to the 9 in my book, rather than reading the other 15 online or going out and buying another copy.

One of the biggest arguments I had for doing so was that the actual content was not the reason that the Canterbury Tales was so remarkable. The Tales are notable because of the time, place, and fashion in which they were written. Written in the decades before 1400, Chaucer - who was fluent in German, Italian, French, Latin, and Greek - decided that the Tales were going to be written in Middle English, the language of the commoners. In so doing, he created what stands today as one of the purest and best examples of the language we have today. It shows the differences in syntax, vocabulary, and grammar, even being credited for the creation of some words in our modern vernacular (laxative, jingle, fart and vomit for starters). The edition I had, despite its faults, had one fantastic feature - unlike other versions with either the original Middle English with footnotes or the Modern English, it had a double-page format with the Middle English on the left and the equivalent Modern English on the right. This allowed for me to read in Middle English as much as I liked, with the Modern English there as a confirmation, update and safe haven in times of mental suffering.

The content, while not the reason for reading, was certainly still amusing. My selection of Tales didn't include most of the corrupt-Church stories (with the very notable exception of the Pardoner, whose actual job was being the Church corrupter), instead focusing on the other main thread - marriage and why it is awful. The stories included love triangles, cheating and misbehaving wives, and unrequited courtly love. Sometimes they were played straight, and sometimes they were parodied, but the message was fairly consistent that love and marriages were difficult to get right and awful if you got them wrong. Divorce, it must be noted, was not mentioned even indirectly. It was either death or cheating, and it was a difficult decision for some of the parties involved. Let it be said here and now that any significant other of mine has my permission to cheat if it will spare them death. Honest, I won't be mad, not even a little.

Now, gode men, I praye yow to be glad. Thus endeth here my tale.

7/10