Whoa

I have made it to the top of page 31.

Oh my.

Writing Update

I'm on page 26. I was really hoping to get to 30 tonight. I think I could have, but I kept getting distracted by shiny things. Still, five pages in one night isn't too bad.

Right?

Right?

Secret Origins

If you were wondering:

McCaughrean’s retelling, specifically, seems interested in pointing readers to certain conclusions. Each tale has been renamed. Some of the titles are certainly fitting – “The Knight’s Tale of Chivalry and Rivalry” for example (McCaughrean 7). Other titles seem to miss the point of the tale, especially “The Miller’s story is A Barrel of Laughs” and “The Reeve insists on recounting A Racket at the Mill” (McCaughrean 19, 38).

Writer's Block

Okay. It's early in the evening. I'm fed and hydrated. I am not tired. I have all of my work and all of my notes.

So.

Why can't I write anything?

small crisis

It was bound to happen.

Some of my work has been lost.

I usually work at the library -- less distracting than home. I always save every few minutes, then email myself the whole shebang. I'm not sure what happened, but all of the work from yesterday -- it's not here. I'm thinking maybe it got saved to a temporary file or something.

Luckily, I guess, it was only a page or so worth of work. Still, though.

ETA I found it! I think I'm going to pass out.

Images

I thought it might be neat to include a discussion of cover art in my thesis.

Of course, I only just came up with this idea, so I haven't been making notes about covers as books have passed into and out of my hands.

So I thought: an Amazon search!

God, I hate myself.

First I did a search, and just looked at the top twenty pages of results -- I got some good stuff, but I know I wasn't getting everything.

So I switched to a "literature" search, arrange by publication date. I'm on page 24 of who knows how many -- Showing 277 - 288 of 3,128 Results. I'm only on August 2006.

Oh, well, not like I had anything better to do tonight.

ETA: I stopped at page 56. I was going cross-eyed.

Writing Update

Twenty pages! A third of the way there. Well, in theory, who knows how much will get tossed out.

And I have charts. I bet the MFAs don't have charts.

Charts

I just spent the last hour or so making charts in Excel. Hee.

The numbers might change as more text books trickle in, but for now, I looked at 12 literature texts/anthologies/children's books.

The Pardoner's Tale was featured in nearly every book -- it was the most represented tale. The Wife of Bath and the General Prologue tied for second.

Poetry Books

I have a couple of poetry books I got through ILL at the library.

One is called 101 Famous Poems (2004). It was originally published in 1958. I can't quite figure out when this copy was published, but it looks very new. The lending library got it in 2004.

It's neat to see what were famous poems 50 years ago. There is a lot you would expect -- Shakespeare and Whitman and Poe. There are a few women -- Dickinson, Barret Browning, Millay. There are some weird additions -- the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence, the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta.

There were also poets I'd never heard of, poems I'd never heard of. There was a poem by Sidney Lanier, who I didn't think anyone knew outside of Georgia. Indeed, I'm always tempted to write "Lake Sidney Lanier." Poor guy.

The other text, Western Wind: And Introduction to Poetry, by David Mason and John Frederick Nims, is really cool. It starts with the medieval poem "Blow Thou Western Wind," which I love, and had not thought about in a long time.

Westron wind, when wilt thou blow?

That the small rain down can rain.

Christ, that my love were in my arms,

And I in my bed again.

Word's Suggestions

Currently I am writing about Harold Bloom. Oh, yes, Harold Bloom.

I am using the word "critizing" which Word doesn't like. Oh, Blogger says its, "criticizing." Right, I see the problem now.

Anyway, the suggestions Word gave me: cruising, citizen, eroticizing, iridizing, and crediting. Notice, none of them are the word I actually need.

More to the point: No! I'm not eroticizing Harold Bloom! Dear god, no!

Choices

This is from John Gardner's biography of Chaucer. It comes from Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales: Selected Works and Related Readings. [Nevill Coghill, trans]. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2002.

271: “After careful thought, if we were given the choice of living then or now, we might well decide to scrap out modern world. . . .”

Really? Are there people who would really prefer to live in the 1300s? I mean, even if one was in favor of the religiousness of it, or the patriarchy, what about the sanitary conditions (or lack there of), the poor medical care, the great disparity between the rich and poor, the shortened life span.

More to the point, every history class I have sat in, with a few exceptions, have been teleulogical in nature. That is to say, human history is seen as drive towards perfection -- the best time to be alive is right now (or perhaps the near future) -- the past has been striving to reach this point.

Which isn't to say that's not entirely correct. I am not about to suggest that 2007 in America is the Best Thing/Place/Time Ever!!!!, but it's pretty darn good. I like that even though I am a lower-class (socio-econmocially speaking) female I can attend university. I like that I don't have to worry about the Black Death -- though AIDS is worse, so. Etc Etc.

Anyway, I just think that's an odd claim, working on a lot of faulty warrants.

Dear Harold Bloom

Chaucer and Shakespeare are two different people from two different eras writing in (more or less) different genres.

I really really really really think you can talk about Chaucer without mentioning Shakespeare.

This isn't the freaking Bible, where everything in the Old Testament anticipates and is redeemed by the New Testament.

It's just history. No one is anticipating anyone else. Chaucer is not borrowing from Shakespeare; he can't.

Chaucer wrote. He wrote beautiful works, important works. But he is his own person.

Leave freakin' Shakey out of it.

Writing Begins

I have all of my notes in one large Word document. (21 pages, single spaced, if you're wondering.)

I have started the introduction.

Yikes!

University Bookstore

Today I went to the university bookstore to check out their Chaucer inventory.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Oh, Boccaccio, yes. Boccaccio everywhere you looked. Paradise Lost, even, and Gilgamesh. Shakespeare by the boatload.

But no Chaucer.

It's just a little weird, is all I'm saying.

Local Bookstores

I visited the local bookstores and took stock of their Chaucer inventory. I still need to check out the university bookstore, though.

Large Used Bookstore

West, Richard. Chaucer: His Life and Times. 2000.

Chaucer: Sources and Backgrounds. Oxford, 1977.

Geoffrey Chaucer of England. 1946. [I can't make out what I wrote for the publisher.]

Barron's Interlinear.

Wife of Bath. Cambridge, 1965, 2000.

Troilus and Criseyde. Penguin, 1971, 1985.

Gardner, John. Life and Times of Chaucer. 1977.

T and C. Oxford, 1988.

T and C. Modernized by G.P. Krapp. Vintage, 1932, 1959.

T and C. Everyman, 1953, 1991.

On the one hand, I'm surprised by how much T and C there is. Of course, given this is a used bookstore, maybe it's not so surprising that's what people don't want to keep.

Small Used Bookstore (Comparatively Speaking, of course)

Bantam dual-language. 1978.

MaxNotes [some kind of Cliffs Notes thing]. 1995.

Skeat edition of CT. 1929.

Lowes, J.L. Geoffrey Chaucer and the Development of his Genius. 1934.

Viking Portable CT. 1968.

Bantam CT, 1981.

Penguin CT (trans. Neville Coghill), 1960. There were three copies.

Bowden, Muriel. A Reader's Guide to Geoffrey Chaucer. 1967.

Intro to Chaucer. Cambridge, 1968.

CT in modern English. 1934.

Everyman CT. 1926. It was a pretty little book; I almost bought it.

Signet [a selection from the CT], 1969.

Riverside, edited by R. Pratt -- a selection -- 1966.


Independent Bookstore

Nothing other than Chaucer's inclusion in an anthology of poetry edited by -- wait for it -- Harold Bloom!

Cliff's Notes

I bought a copy of CT Cliffs Notes, from 1997. I got a good deal -- cover price is $4.50, but I got them used for $3.00. Of course, it's scribbled on, and the cover is adorned with a multitude of smiley faces.

I was going to read it and take notes, but. . .I can't bring myself to do it.

I still can't belive I bought Cliffs Notes, really.

. . . .

I was more of a SparkNotes girl.

Kid's Book

I quite like this, from The Canterbury Tales. By Geoffrey Chaucer. Adapted by Diana Stewart. Illustrated by Dan Hubrich. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn Publishers, 1991:

7: “The language of the CT may be strange, but the people Chaucer wrote about are not that different from people today. That is why his tales are still so popular. The people he writes about have the same thoughts and desires as the modern reader. They are greedy for money or love, or they just want to be happy and entertained.”

44: “Chaucer was one of the first important writers to write in English. . . .”
“Today he is often called the father of English Poetry.”

I think these are quite lovely explanations of who Chaucer and his poetry were.

bad translation

From: The Bedford Anthology of World Literature: The Middle Period, 100 C.E. – 1450. Paul Davis, et al. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004.

885: When zephyrs have breathed softly all about

. . .what?

Buuuurn Chaucer

Would you like some ice for that burn?

From: Elements of Literature. Annotated Teacher’s Edition. Sixth Course. Literature of Britain. Anderson, Robert et al. Orlando: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc: 1993.

85: “Most important, in 1387 Chaucer began CT, a work he never completed, but must be considered one of the very greatest works in the English language. CT alone – perhaps even only the Prologue to the Tales – would be sufficient to place Chaucer in the company of Shakespeare and Milton."

How kind!

Good and Bad

From: Western Civilizations: Their History and Culture. 14th ed. Judith C. Coffin, Robert C. Stacey, Robert E. Lerner, Standish Meacham, eds. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2002.

This part I thought was great:

412: “Similar in many ways to Boccaccio as a creator of robust, naturalistic vernacular literature was the Englishman Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400). Chaucer was the first major writer whose English can still be read today with relatively little effort."

What a nice introduction to Chaucer. The textbook compares him to another author that's just been described, providing connections for the students. The book makes Chaucer sound interesting -- there's a lot of dynamic adjectives (if there is such a thing). And I love the last line, I really do -- it acknowledges that there were other authors before Chaucer and that he had contemporaries -- but it's true, he is one of the easiest to read.

Then:

412: "Remarkably, he was both a founding father of England’s mighty literary tradition and one of the four or five greatest contributors to it: most critics rank him just behind Shakespeare and in a class with Milton, Worsdworth and Dickens.”

Gah! Founding fathers, blah blah blah, Shakespeare, blah blah blah. The Dickens part cracks me up. I mean, sure, he's considered a major author now, but at the time. . . .

Oh, well.