Today !

Today I have something in common with a piano.  !  !

It's been a great day. Many things to be thankful for. One thing I still look forward to with great enthusiasm is a book--a book about Ovid that Chaucer would have known. References to the book were many as I did my research. I never accessed it because it was written in Old French. I don't read Old French, but a scholar at Baylor University, who does, received a grant to set the book into Modern English. It's been in the works for a couple of years. I will manage to get a copy as soon as they announce it is ready.
     Lord, bless Dr. Sarah-Jane Murray and reward her efforts.

Here's Hershey

Well, Hershey has been waiting in the wings for some time. We had to finish the piece about Angus Fletcher first. Priorities, you know. Hershey is named after a Hershey kiss, of course. I'm not sure the color in the picture does his Chocolate-ness justice. And that's a sparkly silver wrap-around collar. I was going to say that I had no plans for where he'll go--but I sent his picture to a friend. That did it. He'll be her companion come tomorrow afternoon.  I'm always pleased when my dolls find a good home.

 

Angus Fletcher: Hero

While I'm  thinking about important books, here's one that brought a clear focus to what I saw in Chaucer:  Allegory: the Theory of a Symbolic Mode, by Angus Fletcher.

Let's set the scene for allegory with words from W. T. H. Jackson in The Literature of the Middle Ages, published in 1960. "This feeling for allegorization, for double and triple levels of meaning, is one of the features which distinguish the great works of imagination in the Middle Ages from the mediocre." Allegorical literature, with its cultivated obscurity, was "the most characteristic literary form during the later Middle Ages." These statements from Jackson gave me confidence in seeing Chaucer as a great allegorist.
     However, in 1962, D. W. Robertson, Jr. published A Preface to Chaucer with opinions at odds with the acknowledged importance and dominance of allegory. The title surely demonstrates that its opinions should be absorbed before pursuing Chaucer. Robertson says, "allegory is almost universally regarded with suspicion, if not with contempt." One reason is that "its presence cannot be detected by Modern Philological methods."
     [Decades before, it had even been claimed that Chaucer had freed himself from allegory. Scholar G. L. Kittredge went so far as to say, "Chaucer, they tell us, is very modern. So he is; this crisis proves it." The resolution of the "crisis" was having someone interrupt the Monk's long chain of sad stories to bring an end to it.]
     In the face of such scathing dismissal, Angus Fletcher, in 1964, courageously wrote an entire book about allegory. He demonstrated the purpose served by the form. It's a fascinating must-read for anyone interested in medieval literature.

When the Middle Ages is condemned for its allegorical tastes, it is often because imaginative allegory is lumped with mechanical allegory. The imaginative creates fresh pictures for the mind, while the mechanical starts from an existing story and destroys it to get at something inside. One destructive moralizing example, offered by a Professor Emeritus of UCLA, will suffice.  An erotic episode of "the lover plucking his rosebud," in the Romance of the Rose was moralized to signify "Joseph of Arimathea taking the body of Christ down from the cross." Such a distorted "inner meaning" is bound to prejudice the average reader (or critic) against allegory.
     Fletcher asserts that "allegories are far less often the dull systems that they are reputed to be than they are symbolic power struggles involved with authoritarian conflict." Allegory can serve a purpose beyond entertainment.
     Fletcher tells us, "in the simplest terms, allegory says one thing and means another." Or, "one thing is said in order to mean something beyond that one thing." It is "structured according to ritualistic necessity, as opposed to probability."
     An important aspect of allegory is that once its structure is determined, it must be complete. A variation of "Romeo and Juliet" must have the lovers come to a sad end. Or, if "Cinderella" is the underlying structure, there has to be a Prince Charming. Once the presence of Chaucer's zodiac figures are established, the travelers are all assumed to be cosmic entities. [See blog entries Apr 2012; Jul 2013]

So how did Fletcher's book answer questions I had with what I saw in Chaucer? Here are a few examples:
     There are two scenarios of allegory--a progress--that is, a questing journey; or a battle--two opinions or "good versus evil" portrayed as an actual battle or a debate. Obviously the Canterbury Tales is a progress where the destination is not reached. [Jul 2013]
     The "cultivated obscurity" of allegory is shown in the blurring of time and space early in Chaucer's General Prologue. And though the pilgrims are presumed to be traveling in the countryside, not a word is said of road conditions or weather. [Mar 2012]
     Considering "involvement with authoritarian conflict," when we identify the Host as Christ, the Host's wife is then the "bride of Christ"--the Church. Now examine the purpose of this violent, domineering wife about whom he laments. [Feb 2012]
     Though you could content yourself with the surface story and ignore any hidden meaning the poet's images may nag you. "Why did he say that?" Certain words demand special attention. Fletcher uses the term "conspicuous irrelevance"--words that are outstanding because they seem out of place in some way. Five men are said to be in one suit. [Aug 2013] Only one pilgrim is said to wear spurs and it is a woman! [Mar 2012] Taking note of such "irrelevancies" may bring a parallel structure into focus because these are clues to their astrological identity.
    Another allegorical maneuver is juxtaposing two things that would seem better off separated. Remember the excellent reputation of the Cook who is then immediately said to have an open, incurable running sore. [Aug 2013]
     Sometimes Chaucer's grammar is questioned and "corrected" by editors as when the ever-pricking Thopas hunts a wild deer "for river." Editors suggest it should be "to the river"--which unwittingly bypasses the risqué intention of riving (penetrating) a sought-after "deer."
     When all the characters are recognized, the varying relationships can be understood by "ritualistic necessity." For example, it explains the Host's lack of respect toward the Pardoner [Feb 2013] or the Nun's Priest. [Mar 2014] And we understand the deference shown the Prioress and the Knight. [Mar 2012]
     The point of allegory, such as the Canterbury Tales, is that it does not need to be read with interpretation. [May 2012] But it is "a structure that becomes stronger when given a secondary meaning as well as a primary meaning." The greatness of Chaucer's allegory has yet to be appreciated by the world of academia.

The best laid plans . . .

About an hour ago I gave up. Not permanently. Just for tonight.

     I planned to have a piece on Angus Fletcher to present to the writers group I attend each Wednesday. Well, as I read over what I had written so far it was just a string of information, facts. It had nothing to do with the thrill, the life-changing experience of what I discovered in his book.

     So I’ve decided to  give precedence to Ash Wednesday—which is tomorrow. Maybe the Lord  has something for me to learn from this change of plans.

      Maybe you’d like to connect to  “The Best Lent Ever.”  I tried it last year and it was my best Lent ever. Put this in your browser and you may have your Best Lent Ever. God bless you.

http://dynamiccatholic.com/bestlentever/?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoksq%2FMdu%2FhmjTEU5z16ukoWaa2gYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMSsBgMa%2BTFAwTG5toziV8R7LMJc1o0toQWBbl

Hello, Clancy!

A good friend at the writers group I attend brought me a new supply of fabric and yarn to use for dolls. Completely unsolicited. Just a thoughtful and genrous surprise. The friend is Pat Sheehan. So I used some of what she had given me to make a doll for her. She named him "Clancy." Here he is.

Pat was born in Belfast. You might suspect the Irish inclination from the name she gave the doll.
     Another special thing about her is she has written a memoir, a charming memoir, about the transition when her family moved from Ireland to Los Angeles when she was a teenager. Can you imagine the culture shock? We writers looked forward each week to her next installment--learning about life in Belfast and the adjustments necessary in accepting the lifestyle of LA.

The book is still available on Amazon. I heartily recommend it.

Terry Jones and Steve Ellis

I checked to see if Terry Jones' Who Murdered Chaucer? and Steve Ellis' Chaucer at Large are both available on Amazon. They are. So that means to me that they would not be hard to find. Neither book is new, but they are exceptional at increasing the perception of Chaucer's image. He was much more than just a storyteller when he lived.

     I've mentioned Who Murdered Chaucer? before. It's an important book; it has an important message. It is NOT a literary look at Chaucer. Far from it. Instead, it creates the milieu in which he lived. And you get a picture of Chaucer the man and how he fits into the forces at work around him. You also are led to ponder a strange lack of information.
     The idea of Chaucer's "murder" started out as a fun piece, an entertainment at a literary gathering. The questions raised intrigued the participants. Several experts from different fields, along with Terry Jones (he of Monty Python fame), felt driven to go deeper and produce a book so their findings and speculations would "shed more light on this rather shady corner of history," as Terry Jones explains in the foreword entitled, "How this book came about."

 The story contained in Steve Ellis' Chaucer at Large is said, by a noted Chaucer scholar, to be "often quite extraordinary and it has not been told before." Ellis' book, in contrast to Jones', IS a literary look at Chaucer. The focus, however, is entirely new. This is not an analysis of the Tales, but a presentation of how the poet's imagination has been adapted in the English-speaking world from the 1800s into the 21st century. Chaucer is found at "the heart" of the literary outreach of our culture. Novelists, poets, authors of children's books--stage , television, radio and film--all find inspiration and challenge in the medieval poet. Ellis finds him "elusive" and "intriguing." As a new collection of information, I found it surprising at times.
     And, if I may digress, it delighted me that Ellis, in his conclusion, touches upon the fact that the Pilgrims never reach Canterbury.  "The Tales does not need 'finishing' because it stands in its present state as 'an artistic unified whole,' its so called incompletion part of a deliberate design." It does my heart good to see it stated so clearly, to recognize the destination as beyond the end of the narration.

The two books are very different. Neither is a formal presentation of research. Though they both are built on research, their aim is to intrigue the general reader regarding Chaucer, the great English poet. Try them. The image you hold of Geoffrey Chaucer will be altered significantly.

Curly works

I tried something new for making curly hair on a doll. I'm pleased to say that it worked out just fine. When I'd finished the first doll with the new style of hair--I named her Elena-- I took it to show my friend Lorraine. As I handed Elena to her she immediately hugged the doll. Well, that's a clear sign that little Elena would have a happy home with Lorraine.

 Lorraine immediately accepted the responsibility.  Makes a "mother's" heart grateful.