In Chaucer’s original The Canterbury Tales, written in the late fourteenth century, the narrator joins a group of 29 pilgrims who are about to set out on a journey from Southwark to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. He proposes that each member of the group tell two stories to entertain them on their journey, and proceeds to record each of these ‘tales’. The teller of the best story was to be rewarded with a free meal at the expense of the rest of the group.
]]>This production by theatre company KNUTS is a modern adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in two parts. Adapted by Stephen Quinn and directed by Stephen Lee, it transposes stories from Chaucer’s original text into a variety of different genres, ranging from Western to silent film, Victorian melodrama and a Shakespearean version of a Medieval Romance. Part One includes renditions of ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’, ‘The Miller’s Tale’ and ‘The Reeve’s Tale’, and Part Two ‘The Franklin’s Tale’, The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ and ‘The Merchant’s Tale’. This production featured as part of the Perth Fringe Festival in 2013, where ‘The Canterbury Tales: Part One’ was performed from 7 February to 13 February and ‘The Canterbury Tales: Part Two’ was performed the following week from 14 February to 19 February 2013. A positive review of ‘The Canterbury Tales: Part Two’ from The West Australian can be read at: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/-/entertainment/16159623/review-the-canterbury-tales-part-two/.
In Chaucer’s original The Canterbury Tales, written in the late fourteenth century, the narrator joins a group of 29 pilgrims who are about to set out on a journey from Southwark to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. He proposes that each member of the group tell two stories to entertain them on their journey, and proceeds to record each of these ‘tales’. The teller of the best story was to be rewarded with a free meal at the expense of the rest of the group.
Although the article lists 1328 as the year of Chaucer’s birth, most scholars date it almost two decades later, c.1340. See for example, Douglas Gray, ‘Chaucer, Geoffrey (c.1340–1400)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5191, accessed 24 Feb 2011.
]]>This column from the Colonial Literary Journal in 1844 provides a biography of medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Quoting from an unnamed source, the article names Chaucer alongside Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton as one of the ‘Four Great English Poets’, and credits him with helping to form the English language. In its praise of Chaucer’s poetry, the article likens him to a range of Renaissance painters: “Chaucer excels in pathos, in humour, in satire, character, and description. –His graphic faculty, and healthy sense of the material, strongly ally him to the painter; and perhaps a better idea could not be given of his universality than by saying, that he was at once the Italian and the Flemish painter of his time, and exhibited the pure expression of Raphael, the devotional intensity of Domenechino. The colour and corporeal fire of Titian, the manners of Hogarth, and the homely domesticities of Ostade and Teniers!”
Although the article lists 1328 as the year of Chaucer’s birth, most scholars date it almost two decades later, c.1340. See for example, Douglas Gray, ‘Chaucer, Geoffrey (c.1340–1400)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5191, accessed 24 Feb 2011.
Thomas Hoccleve (c.1367-1426) was an English poet and clerk of the Privy Seal. “The Regiment of Princes” was written in 1410-11 and was addressed to Prince Henry, the future King Henry V. It describes the virtues of a good ruler, and survives in 43 manuscript copies. For the text of Hoccleve’s “The Regiment of Princes”, see http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/hoccfrm.htm.
]]>In this Western Mail article from 1930, the author begins by providing a somewhat negative review of Thomas Hoccleve’s poem, “The Regiment of Princes”. Asserting that the poem “looks better than it reads”, the author describes it as a “long and tedious poem on virtues and vices in imitation of an older writing”. The author goes on to suggest that Hoccleve has “an historical, rather than a literary value”, because he drew in the margin of the book what was thought to be the most accurate portrait of his near contemporary, Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400), and revered him in the text. The author concludes that although not a great poet, Hoccleve was probably an “earnest, forthright man”, because he knew his limitations.
Thomas Hoccleve (c.1367-1426) was an English poet and clerk of the Privy Seal. “The Regiment of Princes” was written in 1410-11 and was addressed to Prince Henry, the future King Henry V. It describes the virtues of a good ruler, and survives in 43 manuscript copies. For the text of Hoccleve’s “The Regiment of Princes”, see http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/hoccfrm.htm.