Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
(and possibly Troilus)

Geoffrey Chaucer is sometimes called the English language’s second greatest poet. It might be fair to wonder where that “second” came from. Shakespeare himself was not so sure: one of his collaborative plays begins with the warning that what follows will be “below [Chaucer’s] art,” and that it would be “too ambitious to aspire to him, weak as we are.” If the older poet needs any more credentials than that, how about his nearly single-handed invention of the rhythmic system that underlies almost every English poem written today? (Or how about his single-handed invention of Valentine’s Day?)
  His stories, his characters, are unforgettable -- sad, horrifying, hilarious, scandalous, bawdy, and often of deep religious seriousness, all written in a graceful and gorgeous language that alternates between simple earthy beauty and unmatched pyrotechnic virtuosity. We’ll have available to us both a modern English translation and Chaucer’s original Middle English -- which turns out to be easier for modern readers than most of Shakespeare, once one gets the hang of it. We’ll start this fall with some of the funniest, and then some of the greatest, pieces from Chaucer’s unfinished masterpiece the Canterbury Tales, covering most of the rest in the spring, concluding with the magnificent mini-epic (the Knight’s Tale) included within it. Time permitting we’ll aim to end the spring with Chaucer’s second (and finished!) masterpiece, the philosophical epic Troilus and Criseyde, a subtle and sometimes heartbreaking probing of love, freedom, agency, passion, loyalty and betrayal. An immersion program, then, in some of the most wondrous poetry of the Middle Ages, with sublime movements of soul and fart jokes for all! Come join the pilgrims...