Talk:The Canterbury Tales

The image appears to be overwriting the text - can someone please correct this pronto? Deb

Looks fine to me. (Mozilla 1.1b and IE 5.5 on Windows 2000; tried both large and small window sizes; using Standard skin.) --Brion

Looks fine here too (IE 6 on Windows XP SP2). 69.231.214.205 08:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

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How about a klbhfkldgjklj or without a summary of each? It's probably a bit over the top to have a subpage for each one though. Maybe a few quotes from the tales (eg. Whan that Aprille with his shoures soghte... (Gen. Pr. 1)) would be good too. --Magnus 09:52 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

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Deleted the Reference to Germanic English; Chaucer's linguistic choice was to use the London or Southern dialect of Middle English, rather than Latin or French. I inserted ft nstead of using French or Latin, which were usually used for literary works

Added a brief list of the many genres used in CT DigitalMedievalist 21:13, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Is it really fair to say "Perhaps the greatest contribution that this work has made to English literature is in its use of vulgar (i.e. 'of the people') English, instead of using French or Latin, which were usually used for literary works."? Gower, Langland and the Gawain poet were all contemporaries of Chaucer who wrote major literary works in English. The Gawain poet may not have been very influential, but Langland and Gower certainly were.Harry R 11:03, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Chaucer's work was more popularized and more widely distributed. The sentence also does not preclude similar influences by his contemporaries. But by all means mention them in a new sentence and place that sentence just after the one you quoted. --mav 08:04, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

No, Chaucer's work was definitely more influential. We have more manuscripts of Chaucer than of Gower and Lydgate combined, suggesting that he was more poular than either (this is born out by contemporary third party records as well) Chaucer was printed earlier and more often that either Gower or Lydgate, and the orthographic and vocabulary used in books post Chaucer/Lydgate/Gower strongly reflects Chaucer's choices, rather than either Lydgate or Gower. The Gawain poet was probably read with great difficulty by those outside of the West Midlands, if he was read at all. DigitalMedievalist 02:26, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC) Lydgate

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Shouldnt this be at The Canterbury Tales?--Jiang 13:46, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This doesn't appear to comment on Chaucer's importing of European influence, particularly the 'metre or iambic style, starting the trend to consign appalling anglian alliteration to dust. Shouldn't it? Icundell 11:57, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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is the list of tales in the correct order? I just read a article, George Lynam Kittredge's "Chaucer's Discussion of Marriage" from 1920, that implied that the three tales from the marriage group follow each other, the wife of bath >>> the squire >>> the franklin...

Unfortunatly I don't have time to check this out, any voulnenteers? 144.124.16.33 19:34, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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What happened to the Canterbury Tales template? -R. fiend 22:55, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Err I dunno what did happen it is till there that I can see. MeltBanana 22:59, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Moved from article

i believe that short stories from the 19th century are very important else we would never had our great stories nowadays - quoted by amanda bushell in the 19th century short stories were very popular. most of our stories nowadays come from the 19th century told from people from generation 2 generation yay! - quoted by emma lampitt User:217.33.74.20 moved from article Alf ^melmac 13:24, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

what has happened?

Someone has deleted virtually the whole site. can someone please put this back —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.188.88.248 (talk • contribs) .

It looks like some un-caught vandalism that happened a while ago. I've put back a more-complete version, but can't guarantee that I didn't lose some valid intermediate edits.

Atlant 16:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

vandalised?

The page has been vandalised again. Some text about the human penis which should be edited out - i dont know enough about wiki to do it myself :(

25 October 2006

Someone has Vandalised the page

Please fix it. It's people like these that stop wikipedia from being a credible source of information recognised by universities.

I enjoy wikipedia immensely —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.168.230.168 (talk) 07:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Anti-Semitism

Though a potentially controversial topic, I think discussion of anti-Semitic themes is a valid part of placing the book in its significance to literature; but this section needs expansion and further reference, as well as more neutral phrasing, to support its premise.Jack Hare 01:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I've added another quote (Jeremy Cohen, Oxford U.P.) giving a wider context and removed that POV tag, because "needs expansion" is very different from POV. Please provide more notable scholarly views on the subject from reliable sources. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 06:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Good call; I pondered a long while over the templates and couldn't decide which of several was the most appropriate, but I thought it merited some sort of attention. I'm no scholar in the appropriate field, however. Jack Hare 07:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

OH NOEX!!! ONE GROUP MADE FUN OF ANOTHER OR CAST THEM IN A BAD LIGHT?!?!? UNHEARD OF! hahaha silly petty little people in your little huddle. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 138.163.0.43 (talk)10:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC).

I have difficulty with the presence of this section at all with reference to the Canterbury Tales. Given that, out of the several thousand lines of the work, there is really only direct example which could be considered anti-semitic, the weight given to Chaucer's contribution to English anti-semitism seems to me to be wholly disproportionate. Furthermore, the Cohen citation does nothing more than use Chaucer as a reference point, and it does not in any way justify the argument that Chaucer in some way contributed to a culture of violence towards the Jews. It is certainly true that a widespread culture of anti-semtism existed at the time of Chaucer's writing, but to tar Chaucer with this brush is to my mind rather sloppy. The Prioress' Tale does, I grant, portray the Jews in a thoroughly unpleasant light, but it must be remembered that her tale does not reflect Chaucer's own views. He mocks the Prioress, laughing at her ridiculous French accent over-delicate table manners. One could in fact argue that he challenges her claims to "conscience" by placing in her mouth such an intemperate and blood-thirsty tale.

Ultimately it seems to me that, in this section, Chaucer and his work is being adduced and subordinated to another cause, one which in which he took only passing interest, and that to give over almost a quarter of the space allocated to the general significance of the Canterbury Tales to the very minor point of Anti-Semitism is unnecessary. The solution is clear: mention the problem of anti-semitism in the Significance section, and provide a link to the Prioress' Tale; the Anti-Semitism section should be removed. Gingerburn 2 August 2007 1500 (UTC)

Summmary of tales in article.

Perhaps a summary of each tale should be written within the article in addition to/instead of the seperate articles for each tale; or alternatively use one article summarising all the Canterbury Tales (as was done with The Decameron? 88.110.173.15 19:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)Revolver66

PEOPLE MISSING

Um... what about the Plowman of flines 539-555 ?