Chaucer: Strictly for dirty old men?

Subject: Chaucer: Strictly for dirty old men? Sun Oct 11, 2009 1:42 pm

Understandable if all you've read is "The Miller's Tale."

Subject: Re: Chaucer: Strictly for dirty old men? Sun Oct 11, 2009 1:43 pm

haha.

I would say no. Mainly because I'm not old... Dirty maybe. Laughing

Head Wankee Gender: Number of posts: 1569 Registration date: 2008-06-09

He became a wise old man himself - read "Troilus & Criseyde" - I like to think he was a catcher in the rye when young - see "The Book of the Duchess." But regrettably most people's introduction, if not the sum of their high school reading in him, is "The Miller's Tale," an extended fart joke.

Subject: Re: Chaucer: Strictly for dirty old men? Sun Oct 11, 2009 1:52 pm

My introduction was 'The Merchant's Tale'. Since then, it has remained my favourite. Maybe just because it was my first. ?

Subject: Re: Chaucer: Strictly for dirty old men? Sun Oct 11, 2009 2:51 pm

Chaucer is a poet for any age group canny enough to circumvent the initial- and really quite superficial- problem of vocabulary.

He's also a local lad: Comptroller of the King's Excise for Wool, Pelts, Skins & Hides, and based 50 yards from my workplace at Aldgate.

_________________
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas

Gender: Number of posts: 614 Registration date: 2008-11-14

Strictly for dirty old men? Hardly! I'm a 20-yr-old girl and I love Geoffrey Chaucer!

Head Wankee Gender: Number of posts: 1569 Registration date: 2008-06-09

Well, that's a relief!

Gender: Number of posts: 172 Registration date: 2008-12-11

John McLaughlin wrote:

He became a wise old man himself - read "Troilus & Criseyde".

Ah, Troilus and Criseyde...my favorite. Criseyde, what a femme fatale.

I remember the late great Jess Bessinger teaching the poem. I've wondered John, did you know him?

I studied Anglo Saxon with Bessinger. A great teacher.

Gender: Number of posts: 172 Registration date: 2008-12-11

whoops, double post

Head Wankee Gender: Number of posts: 1569 Registration date: 2008-06-09

Dharma Wheel wrote:

John McLaughlin wrote:

He became a wise old man himself - read "Troilus & Criseyde".

Ah, Troilus and Criseyde...my favorite. Criseyde, what a femme fatale.

I remember the late great Jess Bessinger teaching the poem. I've wondered John, did you know him?

I studied Anglo Saxon with Bessinger. A great teacher.

Indeed. I never met him, but his readings were legendary, and captured on a couple Caedmon CD's. You're a lucky guy to have stdied directly under him.