----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Bleackley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: NATLANG: Middle English Stories


> Staving Arthaey Angosii:
>
>
> >What are some common themes in Middle English period stories?
>
> Swiving. The most famous text of the ME period is the Canterbury Tales,
and
> from what I've read of them, they're seriously bawdy.
>
> >  We're
> >supposed to try to make the subject matter, as well as the language, as
> >authentic to period as we can.  I don't know anything about what was
> >written during that time -- all I know is I probably can't write about my
> >conculture, ne?  ;)
>
> The Knight's Tale - two knights fall in love with the same woman, and
> organise a huge mock battle for her hand. One prays to Mars that he will
> win the battle, the other to Venus that he will get the girl. The first
> wins the battle, but is mortally wounded falling from his horse, and so
the
> girl marries the second.
>
> The Miller's Tale. An astrologer, Nicholas, lodging with an old carpenter
> John, devises an evil scheme to distract the carpenter's attention so that
> he can sleep with his much younger wife, Alison. He tells the carpenter
> that he has foreseen a repeat of Noah's flood, and that to prepare for it,
> he must build three boats, one for each of them, in the roofspace of his
> house. They will sleep in the boats and when the flood comes, escape
> through the roof. The effort of building the boats exhausts the carpenter,
> and he falls fast asleep in his boat. Alison and Nicholas sneak downstairs
> for their night of passion. However, Alison has another admirer, Absalom,
> who comes around to serenade her  in the middle of the night. Annoyed by
> this, Alison promises to give him one kiss if he'll go away. She then
> sticks her backside out of the window so he ends up kissing that. Later,
he
> comes back seeking revenge. When he asks for another kiss, Nicholas sticks
> his backside out of the window, but Absalom sticks a red hot poker up it.
> His cries of "Water!" wake John, who, thinking the flood has come, starts
> hacking his way through the roof with an axe and rambing on about Noah's
> flood, and thus ends up a local laughing stock.
>
> The Reeve's Tale. Two Cambridge students go to buy flour for their
college,
> but are cheated by the miller. That night they set out to get their
> revenge. One sneaks into the miller's duaghter's bed and seduces her. The
> other moves a cot from the end of the miller's bed to the end of his own,
> so that when the wife gets up in the night she will get into his bed when
> she comes back. He seduces her, and she tells him where the miller has put
> the flour he has stolen from them. However, when the other student leaves
> the daughter's bed, the rearrangement of the furniture leads to him
getting
> into bed with the miller.
>
> That's as much of the Canterbury Tales as I've read.

And If you're in the UK, you can see a kind of modern adaptation on
Thursdays on BBC 1 at 9PM.  I'm not sure if they're any good or not, I
haven't actually seen them.

> Pete
>