Reading Notes: Canterbury Tales, Part A

(Love Is In the Air; Online source, www.goodmorningtextmessages.com)

     This week I chose to read the Canterbuy Tales section. I really enjoyed the stories and felt they were easy to read and provided a lot of good material to be used as inspiration for my writing.

     One thing I really liked in this section was that there seemed to be an overarching theme about the importance of love weaved into most of the stories. Some in particular really stand out to me, such as "The Wife of Bath's Tale: The Unknown Bride" and "The Franklin's Tale: The Promise of Dorigen".

     Some were more obvious than others but they all spoke to me in a similar way. I felt these stories were written in a way that makes them easy to read, which in turn makes them easier to understand and ultimately to write from reading. "The Wife of Bath's Tale: The Unknown Bride" was one I found particularly enjoyable and I really liked the moral of the story. If I were to use this story to write from, I'd probably use a very similar story-line without the mythical involvement. I think I'd like to just use a metaphorical style for this one, where the woman doesn't really change form at all.  The man would see her differently in the end, because he would finally see her inner beauty instead of her outward appearance.

     I also found "The Franklin's Tale: The promise of Dorigen" very inspiring and heart-touching. Love is shown in so many different ways in this story, Dorigen for her husband, he for her, Aurelius for Dorigen, and even in large part the magician for Aurelius when he frees him of his promise to pay for the magician's services.

     I also really liked the irony used in "The Pardoner's Tale: The Revelers". The young men went on search for Death, trying to kill him and in the end Death outsmarted them all and took each of their lives. I'm not really sure what I might be able to do with this one for my own writing but I did enjoy reading it and would like to find some way of incorporating the theme into my writing.

Source

"Canterbury Tales" as retold by Eva March Tappan in "The Chaucer Story Book"