A Knight's Tale (movie vs tale)

The movie A Knight's Tale is not a very faithful adaptation of Chaucer's original Canterbury Tales, but it still kept some key aspects of the written narrative, as well as making fun of some parts of the original. For instance the movie keeps the idea that Chaucer brings into the Wife of Bath's Tale about "gentilesse" is determined by "vertuous lyvyng" rather than "heigh parage" when the peasant knight comes in to prove himself against the corrupt aristocrat. The knight competes in a joust and falls in love with an aristocratic lady from afar, but the movie changes it slightly when the lady actually has a voice and is stronger than the original tales would have made her. One aspect of the movie takes a far digression from the essence of the original tale - the fact that instead of having two knights who are on equal footing who must fight for Emily's affections, instead the movie introduces the idea of a virtuous white knight vs an evil knight in black. Instead of Chaucer's original intention of having two knights that are not really more or less deserving of Emily, the movie has an underdog hero that the audience can root for.
I also think it is interesting to have Chaucer as a character in the movie, and not in the way of a pilgrimage as the Canterbury Tales originally has. He is simply tagging along with a "knight" and helps him achieve his lady love. He is an enabler as opposed to a bystander and narrator. They drop multiple references to the actual Canterbury Tales however, such as when some debt collectors and corrupt men threaten Chaucer, he says that he will do worse. He will make them hated in literature, their names will live on in infamy. They are Simon the Summoner and Peter the Pardoner, and in the Canterbury Tales they are not portrayed in a positive light.
I think that the movie can highlight and juxtapose with the original tale, showing different aspects of the tale than the original did but still respect and allude to many of the plot points and important elements.

Knighthood and Arthurian Lit

After reading tales and stories from the Middle Ages relating to knighthood and Arthurian tales (such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) I had a hankering to go back and reread my old childhood favorites of the Squire's Tales series. This series was a big part of my life when I was younger. It introduced me to Arthurian literature because the entire point was that the author retold Arthurian tales for a much younger audience, and also in doing so he made them better. He made the tales better because he instilled a much better morality and "moral" to the story than the original tales did. For instance, when he retold the story of Tristam and Iseult, he made sure to cast them in a negative and not at all romanticized light. He was comparing reality with romanticized stories, casting a more in depth narrator that had morals and an interesting personality.
While rereading these I was able to see more of the details from the original stories that he left in, and then the places where he took more creative liberties. This got me thinking about the role of the narrator and author. In the original tales the narrator was more than likely glorifying and validating the stupid "heroic" actions taken by the hero, who more than likely is a depiction of courtly ideals rather than reality. And even those courtly ideals are shallow and silly. In The Squire's Tales however, the narrator (or principle character) is almost always different than the original tales. He puts the squire, a lady, or a lesser known knight in perspective, giving them a voice and letting them be critical of their surroundings and the ideals portrayed by those around them. In these stories the knightly virtues and ideals are seen for what they really are, superfluous and pointless. There are some that are upheld, like defending the weak, but even that is challenged by the idea of "who is weak." The strength of the women in the stories, as well as the added realism of the weakness and character flaws of some of the knights, adds a whole new dimension to the idea of Arthurian literature.

I have 2 interlibrary loan books if anyone is interested in Lollardy:

Helen Barr and Ann Hutchison, eds.  Text to Controversy from Wyclif to Bale.  Brepols, 2005.

Fiona Somerset, Jill Havens, and Derrick Pitard, eds.  Lollards and their Influence in Late Medieval England.  Boydell, 2003.

Stuff to find if the title suits you (probably all in interlibrary loan):

PJP Goldberg, Woman is a Worthy Wight.

Kathleen Kelly, Performing Virginity and Testing Virginity.

Kathleen Kelly, Menacing Virgins.

Christine Peters, Patterns of Piety

Sarah Salih, Versions of Virginity.

Sue Walker, Wife and Widow in Medieval England. 

Mary Erler, Women, Reading, and Piety. 

The Wakefield Plays extra credit

At the Wakefield Mystery plays on Saturday, while the plots of the plays are all unusual and sometimes vaguely blasphemous interpretations of Biblical stories, the way the director and actors presented them made them fun and interesting. Also, as we learned in the post-performance discussion, the plays were originally intended to simply familiarize the general public with the stories, and they certainly do that. In order to interpret and modernize the stories, the actors added singing and dancing to many of the stories, usually fitting the style, for example the devil and his demons did a rap song and Adam and Eve did ballet.

In the post-production discussion, we discussed the history of the Wakefield Mystery plays and some of the changes the director made and the reasoning behind them. The character of God was always played by three actors/actresses at a time who would speak the lines separately and together, and these three actor/actresses alternated between almost the entire cast throughout the plays. The director explained that she didn’t want to have to choose one person to play God because it brings up all kinds of questions and would probably offend someone no matter who she chose. The three-person God represented the Trinity nicely, could have both actors and actresses so there weren’t gender problems, and meant that no one was limited to only playing one character.

I liked the way they modernized some of the stories, like Cain and Abel, so that they were a little more approachable to modern audiences. While moving the stories into a modern setting made them seem less like The Canterbury Tales, the slapstick style of the Noah story is similar to some of the more low-brow tales, like the Miller’s Tale. The Mary story, with its emphasis on her virginity and purity, reminded me of characters like Constance in the Man of Law’s Tale and Griselda in the Clerk’s Tale, or even Virginia in the Physician’s Tale.

British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog - Links

The British Library has a really interesting page of discussions about a variety of medieval manuscripts.

This is the main page.

This is a list of digitized manuscripts - Some are medieval, some not, but they are all interesting.

This is an article about knights fighting snails in manuscript illustrations.

This is a searchable catalogue of the illuminated manuscripts.

I didn't find a ton for what I was specifically looking for, but there are a lot of resources and I'm sure there are things that would help other people out. There is a section about Arthurian manuscripts with some links to some of the specific works as well. You can find it here.

Chaucer has a Pinterest

Hello, all!

I just wanted to share this pinterest board I found that compiles Chaucer-related things. Some are silly and ridiculous, but there are also a number of interesting paintings and such that could be useful, so it could be a nice little jumping-off point, or it could just be entertaining. Use it as you wish!

http://www.pinterest.com/adoublegrace/chaucer/

Hannah