Tag: english
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History Contra Poetics in The Physician’s Tale
There is no introduction to “The Physician’s Tale.” We begin en media res. The tale cites its source as Titius Livius (“Livy”) the great Roman historian, though Chaucer likely borrowed sections from The Romance of the Rose which he also partially translated from French into Middle English. Unlike other tales, “The Physician’s Tale” is not […]
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The Wife of Bath’s Tale: Autobiography and Arthurian Parody
The Wife of Bath is the most famous albeit the most troubling character in Chaucerian literature. As with other storytellers in The Canterbury Tales, we are given only her title at first: the “Wife of Bath.” Later we learn her name is Alysoun, and sometimes she goes by “Aly” (recall that she shares a name […]
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As You Like It, Act I
Scene 1 At the outset, we encounter Orlando, an English spelling of the French hero named Roland (of Chanson de Roland, or the “Song of Roland”, the great French heroic poem from the reign of Charlemagne) bemoaning his state of affairs to the family servant Adam in an orchard. The setting is far from the […]
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