Canterbury Tales Review

So with our lovely two-day (thanks, Albert) test approaching, I figured we could maybe post some good review websites or personal thoughts/interpretations/ideas that might benefit the whole class. I've found one good site that has a really comprehensive biography of Chaucer and links to lots of essays and articles on the Canterbury Tales in general and, more specifically, each of the tales. The link is: http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucer.htm.

Also, does anyone have any insight on the relationships between the characters or on how Chaucer's background (member of a merchant family) affected his writing and description of the different characters? I'm feeling a little confused about the objective portion of the test...

Canterbury Tales Question

I had a quick question about the Knight's Tale. Dan mentioned that it was somewhat based on other stories mixed together. Does anyone know what those stories were? And how well-known they were in Chaucer's society?

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

R. Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

My failed attempt to scan it :)

˘asdaf ˘ aa/ aa˘ aaaa/ aa˘a / a˘ a/ a˘ aa/

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

˘ aas˘ as/ asdaf˘ a/ a˘ a/ a˘ as˘ as˘ as/ asd/

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

˘ daf/ asdaf˘asd / asdaf/ asdaf˘ as˘ asd/ asd˘ a/

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

˘ as/as ˘asd / aas/ as˘ aas˘aa / as˘asdaf /as ˘

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

˘ asda˘as / ass˘ asdaf/ asd˘as / as˘ a˘ as/ a˘ as˘ as˘as /

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

So wrong....
Maybe the thing with 5 stress per line - MAYBE
*dusts off th' olde flame shield*

How to Write a Play Review

http://www.mvhsdrama.com/play_review.htm

Random Absurdist Thought

This weekend I saw school play, The Importance of Being Earnest. I was going just for leisure, so I hadn't really paid attention to the playwright's name, or any background information about the show. It turns out that the Oscar Wilde (author of the play) writes absurdist ideas into his plays, which made it very interesting. I followed this absurdist play better than I did the last one. I found a review of this play from the Theatre of Western Springs (http://www.theatrewesternsprings.com/Actives/archives/Earnest/Earnest.htm)

"In the world of Oscar Wilde, pride, respectability, and societal standards are taken to such absurd extremes that his philosophy, 'that we should treat all the trivial things in life seriously, and all the serious things in life with sincere and studied triviality' seems somehow plausible. In Wilde's world, all of the characters take pride in absurd things 000 their first names, their clothes, their shortsightedness ---to the point where it seems like the whole world is an insane paradox. And it's only because the real society of Wilde's time, and our own, takes pride in ridiculous things that we can laugh at the satire that is so rich in his work."

There were many absurdist things that stuck out in my mind after the play. A couple of times, two sets of charactors would be having two different sets of conversations, and then begin to speak at the same time with the same lines. There were also certain silly elements- both girls only wanted to marry men named Earnest. There were also many interesting lines that I thought were fairly absurd. Here's one :

Lady Bracknell: Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice... as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. I should be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much.


I'm sorry if I rambled, but I just thought it was interesting :)