Edward Garboczi
Tag: Book Review
There are certain books in history that have had a profound effect on literature. The Pilgrim’s Progress in the 1600s launched the novel as a literary form. Chaucer, with his Canterbury Tales in the 1300s, made Middle English, as opposed to the Latin and Norman French of the ruling classes, an acceptable literary language and launched a whole revolution in Middle-English literature and in the English language. John of Gaunt is the nobleman’s name most closely associated with Chaucer as a patron and employer and, towards the end of John’s life, brother-in-law. John of Gaunt (born in Ghent, Belgium, Ghent ~ Gaunt) was one king’s brother and another king’s father and was a powerful aristocrat in England in the 1300s. John of Gaunt was also a patron and protector of John Wycliffe, who first translated the Bible into Middle English, bringing divine knowledge to the ordinary person. It is quite possible that Chaucer and Wycliffe knew each other.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are a major part of our heritage of English literature. Eleanor Farjeon has done a wonderful job in retelling these tales in modern, literary English for older children, advanced middle school to high school, in her book Tales from Chaucer. Farjeon was a published poet and writer of a number of books introducing children to great literature from the past. She also wrote the well-known modern song/hymn “Morning Has Broken,” which states that each new sunrise is a reminder from God of that first morning in the Garden of Eden. Tales from Chaucer includes serious and funny stories, just as Chaucer’s original book did. Some of you reading this review might remember that some of the original Canterbury Tales had a few bawdy humorous bits in them. Eleanor Farjeon avoids these without taking away from the amusement of the reader.
It is hard to underestimate the effect Geoffrey Chaucer has had on the English language and English literature. To better incorporate this book into your curriculum, it might be a good school study to elucidate the parts of the Canterbury Tales and Chaucer’s other writings that have made it into modern English as idioms or expressions. I read one article that said there were at least 35! I’ll give you one to whet your appetite: when we say that someone has persevered in difficult situations, we say they have done so “through thick and thin.” This expression is from the Canterbury Tales.