I know I read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in high school. I really don't remember anything about it, not even what the stories were about, but I do remember that I liked it and it was one of the books that sparked my interest in literature. So I picked up Peter Ackroyd's new translation to revisit the stories. And I cannot believe I read this in high school! Some of those tales are quite naughty! Don't get me wrong-I enjoy a saucy tale, but I cannot believe that my high school in my conservative small-town-in-the-middle-of-the-cornfields allowed us to read such naughtiness. Now I'm starting to think I was probably given some kind of abridged version that cut all that out. Either that, or our parents had never read them either, so they had no idea what we were reading.
What interested me the most though, was Ackroyd's introduction which gives a brief biography of Chaucer's life. I never realized that Chaucer was anything other than a writer, but it turns out that he was a royal servant, a customs official, a judge and member of parliament, and supervised the building works of the king. He was a busy guy.
No comments:
Post a Comment