Michael Delahoyde
Washington State University
CHAUCER
[I was temporarily scheduled to teach English 383, the Chaucer class, Fall 2003; so a substantial web site was planned over the next year. Chaucer was my area of specialization in graduate school and my dissertation focused on Troilus and Criseyde. Chaucer Review published a much revised chapter of that as an article in 2000. I suppose the site here is indefinitely delayed though.]
In the meantime, here is a prize-winning “Effusion on Chaucer” by Dame Smyth-Tethers(Surrey Catch-All, June 1883):
Geoffrey Chaucer, sturdy son of English soil, a skylark soaring over the plodding mind of man, casts his joyous essence on Britannia’s bosom! His was a spirit unrestrained by the world ever too much with us. His cool breath transpired like Zepherus sweetly over meadows, dales and forests, like the cuckoo at first sign of spring. Oh to have been in England then, when April was there! His tales of merry innocent rustics and knights, merry widows from Bath and holy nuns and monks, gay squiers of a romantic age long gone, ambling and cavorting ahorse to Canterbury, calling stories to each other, have ever held those young at heart with a poetic as our beloved Mr. Tennyson would say “glittering eye!” Ah Geoffrey, ever wear your heart upon your sleeve, remain thou ever, in the words of Mr. Pope, “a sylvan bridegroom of happiness and Joy“! Let the critical curfew never toll your passing day, for if it did, t’would take with it, a piece of me!
The Book of the Duchess
The House of Fame
“The Complaint of Mars”
The Parliament of Fowls
Troilus and Criseyde
The Legend of Good Women
The Canterbury Tales
The General Prologue
The Knight’s Tale
The Miller’s Prologue and Tale
The Reeve’s Prologue and Tale
The Cook’s Prologue and Tale
The Man of Law’s Introduction, Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
The Friar’s Prologue and Tale
The Summoner’s Prologue and Tale
The Clerk’s Prologue and Tale
The Merchant’s Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue
The Squire’s Introduction and Tale
The Franklin’s Prologue and Tale
The Physician’s Tale
The Pardoner’s Introduction, Prologue, and Tale
The Shipman’s Tale
The Prioress’ Prologue and Tale
The Prologue and Tale of Sir Thopas
The Tale of Melibee
The Monk’s Prologue and Tale
The Nun’s Priest’s Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue
The Second Nun’s Tale
The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue and Tale
The Manciple’s Prologue and Tale
The Parson’s Prologue and Tale
Chaucer’s Retraction
The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd. ed. by Larry D. Benson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1987. ISBN 0-395-29031-7