My Thoughts About The Canterbury Tales

I read all of the Canterbury Tales twice and I read a modern translation of it on sparknotes.com, and I can still say I don't understand it completely. There was just so much to read, and when it is written in such a different language than I am used to, I easily got lost. I tried really hard though. I hope that helps me out.

Out of the characters we got to know pretty well, I can say my least favorite was the Pardoner. Cheating people like that, while pretending it was going to help them get to Heaven was just plain wrong. Nothing could excuse that. Sure, his tale had a good moral, but that just made me dislike him even more. It is bad enough when someone does something bad, but when they continue doing something bad when they are well aware that what they are doing is wrong...that's just inexcusable. Then he had the nerve at the end of his story to try and cheat the fellow travelers! That part was when I really liked the Host. At times in the story he was kind of crude, but right then he was good in my book.

My favorite character was the Wife of Bath. Yeah, she may be considered a whore by some people, but I really admire her. In that time period, women were supposed to be subservient to their husbands, and bend down to their will, but she refused to. She knew what she wanted, and she went after it! I liked that. She wouldn't even take her fifth husband's constant insults to the female gender, and even tore pages from his book to prove her point. I didn't much enjoy her story, though. While it was not bad, I thought her prologue was much more interesting.

I really liked the Priest's tale. The one with the rooster Chauntecleer and his seven wives, including his favorite, Pertelote. It had a good moral, as well: "Never trust a flatterer." I understood that one completely. I mean, just look at politics! I was surprised Chauntecleer got away from the fox Russel in the end! I fully expected him to die, even though it made me sad. But the Host did ask the Priest for an uplifting story....so that might be why. 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Yeah, this post is a little bit [a lot] late. Oh well, I got to it eventually! So I finished Sir Gawain and the Green Knight a few days ago, and I just have to say that I liked it so much better than I liked Beowulf. While Beowulf was cocky, arrogant, and just overall annoying, Sir Gawain was actually pretty humble. Like in the beginning of the story when he offered to take Arthur's place in the game against the Green Knight, because he was the weakest of the knights? Yeah, right. He was definitely not the weakest. I like how he said he was, though.

I also really liked how he did not sleep with his host's wife. Honestly, most men would have slept with her. Heck, even Lancelot slept with Guinevere. It was nice that he was able to refrain from the temptation. Although the biggest reason he didn't sleep with her was probably so he would not have to sleep with the host.... Um, yeah. I really did like the game though. That was when I started to suspect that the host was the Green Knight, when he told Sir Gawain about the game. The way he repeated his instructions was very similar to the night when him and Sir Gawain first met. I knew for a fact that the host was the Green Knight when his wife handed Sir Gawain the green rope thing. I mean, hello? Can you get anymore obvious? That was probably the point....

I hope the other stories are more like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It wasn't that difficult to read, unlike Beowulf. :)

My Thoughts So Far x]

Honestly, I'm really enjoying this class so far. I expected to have to read stories I could barely understand with a teacher who tried to force them down my throat without explaining them to me at all...

...but I was wrong. It is still true that I'm not understanding the stories fully when I first read them but when we watch and participate in the oral presentations in class, I've noticed that they are helping me a lot. For example, I got the gist of what Beowulf was about, but there were certain parts that confused me. When we were placed into groups and told to choose a section of the poem to convert into a more modern language and act it out, I was forced to understand it because if I didn't I'd probably look kind of dumb. I'm really glad Mrs. Watson thought of the presentations. :]

I had also been nervous about doing my own presentation. Even though I knew I would have another person up there in front of the class with me, I hate speaking in front of large groups filled with people I barely know. But now I'm a little excited about it! I keep thinking of all the different things I could do that are related to the Shakespeare play I chose, like show a movie or something.  :) I just hope that it will be as fun as I'm imagining it to be!

My Thoughts About Beowulf.

I just finished reading Beowulf, and I must say that I am really surprised! When I first started reading about how it was written hundreds of years ago by some unknown author in an ancient language and all that, I just knew that it would be boring beyond belief. After about four hours of watching television with the British Literature book sitting open in front of me, so I could at least pretend I was doing something academic, I forced my self to read the poem...and I liked it! 

It was not nearly as difficult to read as I had been expecting, though in some parts I did get a bit confused, like after Beowulf and his companions got back home to their kingdom and all of that fighting happened. And the part with the dragon? It took me a couple different reads to understand what was going on with that...

The main thing I did not like about Beowulf was that he was so arrogant! Honestly, he was so into himself! Especially when he was talking to Unferth,and bragging about him and the man named Breca having a swimming competition and how he, Beowulf, was so powerful and killed nine sea-monsters in the middle of a storm. Was that story really necessary? Sure, he may have had a reason so brag, but the fact that he did annoys me. It didn't bother me enough to put me off of him at the time, but looking back, he really was conceited. He's still awesome though. I'm far too much of a sissy to ever even consider fighting something like Grendel. :] 

I think I'll stop my little rant here though. That was much more than I had planned to say!