Tag Archives: Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer Invented St. Valentine’s Day

By Robin Bates | Published: February 14, 2018

Chaucer may have invented St. Valentine’s Day as we have come to know it. “Parliament of Fowls” was written to celebrate the occasion, along with a royal wedding.

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Riding with Chaucer into the New Year

By Robin Bates | Published: January 1, 2018

Base your New Year’s resolutions on your favorite characters. I look to the Wife of Bath.

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Chaucer’s Solution for Sexual Assault

By Robin Bates | Published: November 21, 2017

What are we to do about all of our sexual assaulters, given that they probably number in the thousands? Chaucer’s Wife of Bath has an answer.

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Trump in Chaucer, Shakespeare & Conrad

By Robin Bates | Published: September 24, 2017

When compared to people called “dotard” in Chaucer and Shakespeare, Trump fits the insult hurled at him by Kim Jong-un. His statement to African leaders, meanwhile, makes him sound like a “Heart of Darkness” ivory trader.

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A Literary History of the Insult “Cuck”

By Robin Bates | Published: April 9, 2017

“Cuck” has become a favorite insult amongst alt-right types. In today’s post I trace literary references to cuckolds going back to Chaucer.

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Chaucer’s Wife, an Early Gaslighter

By Robin Bates | Published: February 16, 2017

Donald Trump’s non-ending falsehoods have sometimes been described as “gaslighting,” after the old Charles Boyer-Ingrid Bergman film. An early literary example of a gaslighter is Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, although her use of the tactic is far more justifiable.

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We Mooste Calle Him “Hende Donald”

By Robin Bates | Published: October 10, 2016

Donald Trump’s self-admitted sexual assaults resemble those of the university student in Chaucer’s “Miller’s Tales.” Hende Nicholas, however, is far more respectful of his lady love.

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With Brexit, UK Betrayed Spirit of Chaucer

By Robin Bates | Published: June 26, 2016

Brexit violates everything that Geoffrey Chaucer, Britain’s quintessential poet, stood for.

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Stories Have Always Opened Up the Future

By Robin Bates | Published: April 12, 2016

An anthropologist argues that human beings took over the world because they had the ability to compose fictions. Literature continues to point the way forward for us as a species.

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