Week 13 - Extra Reading

(Image taken from Chaucerian Myth)

The Canterbury Tales are a lot better for me to read than Robin Hood was this week, so I am glad to have gotten the chance to go through these stories instead! The Canterbury tales are brutal for many reasons, but perhaps none as wretched as the anti-Semitic rhetoric that is shown in the first story of this series. There is some thing to be said for the culture of the time to think that a story like this is okay. The rest of the stories are peculiar in a similar way. For instance, there is a level of brutality that emphasizes cynicism in the world. The stories desperately try to be as "realistic" as they can be, with animals and humans always acting in a self interest that is held accountable by no force. There seems to be a heavily emphasis on the power of self-interest and the idea that no one will be looking out for another from the goodness of their heart. To be honest these stories made me sad more than anything else.

Bibliography: The Chaucer Book by Eva March Tappan can be found on MythFolklore blog.