In which I agree with a recent article defending Chaucer against charges of sexism and anti-Semitism.
Tag Archives: Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer Was No Sexist or Anti-Semite
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged anti-Semitism, Canterbury Tales, Prioress' Tale, Sexism, Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale Comments closed
Trump & Chaucer’s Pardoner, Both Corrupt
Trump’s abuse of the pardon system invites comparisons with the behavior of Chaucer’s Pardoner and Summoner.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Canterbury Tales, Donald Trump, Pardoner, Summoner, Trump's pardons Comments closed
St. Paul, St. Thecla, and the Wife of Bath
The Wife of Bath threads between visions of marriage articulated by St. Paul. In the process, she articulates a far more spiritual vision than that propagated by misogynist monks of the period.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Christian misogyny, Sexism, St. Paul, Wife of Bath Comments closed
Chaucer & a Trump-Enabling GOP
For a story that captures GOP readiness to believe all that Trump says, there’s Chaucer’s “Merchant’s Tale.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, GOP, Merchant's Tale, Ukraine bribery scandal Comments closed
Is Old Age Becoming Overrated?
A “New Yorker” article on aging turns to literature to debunk the notion that aging is a good thing.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Vanity of Human Wishes", "Sailing to Byzantium", "Tithonous", Aging, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Aristotle, As You Like It, Ecclesiastes, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, King Lear, Merchant's Tale, old age, Plato, Rasselas, Samuel Johnson, Ulysses, William Butler Yeats, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Fantasy Frees Us from Narrow Thinking
Friday I share today a new insight that I gained from my recent Lifelong Learning class about “Wizards and Enchantresses.” To set it up, I first share my theory of fantasy. As I see it, fantasy is always oppositional in its invocation of magic and the supernatural. If it flourished in the wake of the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Enlightenment, fantasy, Fundamentalism, scientism, Wife of Bath Comments closed
Chaucer’s Friar and Abusive Clergy
Wednesday Like many, I had hopes that Pope Francis’s Vatican meeting on clergy sexual abuse would yield something substantial, and like many I have been disappointed. The pope, according to the New York Times, decided that the best way for the church to address the problem lay not in issuing an edict from Rome but […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Catholic Church, clergy sexual abuse, Friar's Tale, Pope Francis, Wife of Bath Comments closed
How I Make Literary Connections
Wednesday A friend the other day asked where my ideas come from, especially when I apply a passage from one century to incidents in another. Yesterday, for instance, I said that Trump confidant Roger Stone reminded me of a passage in Herman Melville’s Confidence Man. So how did that enter my head? To answer, let […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged blogging, Confidence Man, Herman Melville, Restoration comedies, Twelfth Night, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare Comments closed
