Why Chaucer?

And you are right by asking: "Why spending time with Chaucer?" Stubbornly following the rules of "always start at the beginning," my reasoning is, he Chaucer is referred to by the literary top guns over the centuries as the father of English Poetry.

To meet him I start at the City-library: "No poet in the whole English literature tradition, not even Shakespeare, is more appealing, either as a man or as an artist, then Geoffrey Chaucer...", says John Gardener.

And I look through the Canterbury Tales and make my notes. I go home and read the paperbacks I had bought on my way home at the two bookstores en-route from library to my domicile.

Each is titled The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer.

And I find ten syllables and end-rhymes and naturally I credit Chaucer for his choice of words. I love The Cook’s Tale. Having worked as a waiter for many years I can relate to it very well. I wipe tears — from laughing too hard — from my eyes, reading The Knight’s Tale. And I chuckle all the way through The Miller’s Tale.

The next day waiting for an unfaithful lady-friend, to have lunch with, I pick up another copy of The Canterbury Tales at the downtown used-book-store and I read my favorite stories while having lunch by myself. Of course she did not show up, and truly Chaucer becomes more interesting than her excuse on my answering machine at home: "Sorry I did not make it, because I ran into my first husband and I had to take the opportunity to settle some of the old debts."

And over a week of studying Chaucer I get a look at many pages of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Here Chaucer weds the language of common speech to metrical verse. And every time I read Chaucer’s works I am introduced to something new. Over and over I enjoy the light reading he provides, and I thoroughly soak up all the bawdy tales.

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