Monday: 10/28/13: Chaucer

* Open

• Note that the blog Nails and Terms have been updated, and you now scroll down to get the latest information.  
• Study card # 3 check.
• Grammar
  • Dont you love that old palendrome a man a plan a cannal panama
  
   

  

  My favorite President (1901–1909): Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

* Finally, we have an author we can name! Geoffrey Chaucer.  We will be reading from his Canterbury Tales. 



* Do you enjoy people-watching? I do.  When I was first married, my wife and I had very little money, so our typical date was to go to Starbuck's in downtown Santa Cruz...then enjoy the circus walking by and chuckle our way through an evening together.  I think we all enjoy encountering different characters.  That's part of what can make school fun: we are motley crew, indeed (teachers and administrators included)!  Geoffrey Chaucer had a gift for bringing characters to life in fiction, and his various diplomatic posts gave him a great opportunity to interact with many colorful subjects to fuel his gift.  His work, combined with his wildly rich imagination, led to the birth of a host of characters in English literature.

• First, read and take notes from a quick biographical background here.  
• Second review this chronology (just take whatever notes you find most interesting here).
• Third, define the following lit terms in your notes:
• frame narrative 
• irony 
• verbal
• dramatic
• situational

  *  The Canterbury Tales' premise: It's spring, and twenty-nine pilgrims are making their way from Southwerk, London to Canterbury Cathedral to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket. The thirtieth man, the host, decides to join them and to make a wager. Whichever pilgrim can tell the best story to beguile the time as they go will receive a free dinner when they return from their pilgrimage. "The Prologue" introduces the pilgrims, and tales follow. Chaucer never finished the tales, but what we have we treasure.

• Now, read the Prologue
• First, just a bit in the original: Prologue (if you would like to read the whole text in the original, here you go!)
• Now, please read the Prologue in full.

Journal 5 (this will be continued as we read)

• 1 ("Prologue"): Describe five characters traveling to Canterbury together.  
• 2 ("Prologue"): Compare the tone and style of the Gawain author with the tone and style of Geoffrey Chaucer. 

HW: Journal 5 Q's 1-2