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The classic respected series in a stunning new design. This edition of The Knight's Tale from the highly-respected Selected Tales series includes the full, complete text in the original Middle English, along with an in-depth introduction by A. C. Spearing, detailed notes and a comprehensive glossary.
Fourth edition of Terry Jones's groundbreaking study, featuring new material and research Since it was first published in 1980, Terry Jones's study of Geoffrey Chaucer's Knight has proved to be one of the most enduringly popular and controversial books ever to hit the world of Chaucer scholarship. Jones questions the accepted view of the Knight as a paragon of Christian chivalry, and argues that he is in fact no more than a professional mercenary who has spent his life in the service of petty despots and tyrants around the world. This edition includes astonishing new evidence from Jones, who argues that the character of the Knight was actually based on Sir John Hawkwood (d.1394), a marauding English freebooter and mercenary who pillaged his way across northern Italy during the 14th century, running protection rackets on the Italian Dukes and creating a vast fortune in the process.
Knight's Tale breaks boundaries. It uncovers the dark heart of chivalric idealism, injects the political seriousness of epic into the timeless summer of romance, insists on a pagan outlook within a Christian culture, and draws compassion for female suffering from a man's world. Along with the exquisite anonymous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Knight's Tale is the most intricately structured and stylistically pleasing of medieval English romances. For these reasons, it is worthy of its own edition, but what makes it particularly suitable to an illustrated edition is how its narration works by condensing actions and their effects into powerful images and figures. The Knight's Tale has, in fact, been illustrated many times, but never so thoroughly as in the current edition. Moreover, past illustrations have tended to romanticize or sentimentalize the story, eschewing its most violent and disturbing images. The illustrations in this edition attempt to recapture Chaucer's mature vision of the noble life, which refuses to deny the tragic aspects of the chivalric equation of love with war and war with honor. Past illustrations have also tended to adopt a Gothic idiom. The illustrations in our edition adopt a Classical Greek idiom drawn from the Parthenon frieze, Attic black- and red-figure pottery, and ancient Greek sculpture--an idiom suitable to the setting of the tale in legendary Athens and Thebes as well as to Chaucer's humanist impusle. The If considering Theseus's prosecution of war as a civilizing force, one can point to the fact that he puts an end to Creon's "tirannye" (941), restoring the bodies of the desecrated dead to the Argive widows. However, if his objective in attacking Thebes is to avenge the widows on Creon, why does he destroy the city after he has already killed him and routed the Theban army, tearing down "wall, and sparre and rafter" (line 990)? The motive is hardly humanitarian, nor even strategic in the military sense since the Theban forces have already been defeated. Its only objective is pillage--to pay off the Athenian troops--and, of course, it is while ransacking the dead that they find Palamon and Arcite still alive among a pile of corpses, a detail unique to Chaucer's text. While such a practice was endemic to chivalric warfare, it was difficult to contain once started, and it would inevitably produce results inimical to Theseus's stated purpose for going to war against Thebes, which was to right a wrong done to a group of helpless women. As Maurice Keen writes, the trouble with the practice of looting-as-pay was that to pay off soldiers in this way was not the same as to disband them. They had to be left at large, still armed with equipment that was their own, beyond control; and so whole provinces were subjected to the indiscriminate pillaging of soldiery that sought to claim a share in chivalry but whose manner of living was the antithesis of what chivalry stood for, the protection of the poor, the fatherless and the widow. Knight's Tale poses the pivotal question about war: Is there such a thing as civilized warfare, as war fought for a just cause in a controlled manner as a means of restoring order to society, or do all wars inevitably lead to acts of savagery and excess that make a mockery of policy?35 Ancient Thebes is the story of a sustained, sordid, brutal, and self-indulgent lust for power and pleasure eventuating in spectacular violence--Cadmus and the dragon-tooth warriors, Oedipus's primal crimes against nature, Eteocles and Polynices' impiety and fratricidal warfare, Creon's desecration of his nephew's corpse and subsequent murder of his niece Antigone. The idea of a moderate use of force to serve the common good is alien to the Theban legend. Statius considers the possibility of a good war by inserting the Athenian warlord Theseus into the myth of Thebes. Theseus brings peace to Thebes and, in Statius's version of events, saves Antigone, but only after an unforgettable orgy of death has occurred. As discussed above, Chaucer returned to Statius's brooding treatment of the Theban material in order to foreground it. He rereads the Teseida through the lens of the Thebaid, turning it from a conventional love story into a philosophical reflection on the nature of love, war, and governance--both earthly and cosmic. Indeed, it becomes a kind of theodicy, asking why humans must suffer so much and whether there is a benevolent order that transcends the individual ills of human experience, providing an origin for temporal governance. In this vein, Chaucer presents the stadium Theseus builds to hold the tournament as a theatrum mundi, a microcosmic space in which Theseus will try to civilize the unruly dispute between Palamon and Arcite, itself symbolic of the dynastic rivalry between Polynices and Eteocles. 36 Ominously, there is nothing to stop Theseus's men from just such rapine, as he "dide with al the contree as hym leste" (line 1004). For Chaucer, it seems it is not justice but fortune that decides the outcome of war. The eldest Argive widow reminds Theseus of the role of "Fortune" in war, and Chaucer returns to the idea of the uncertainty of military ventures in the temple of Mars murals, where an enthroned "Conquest" (line 2028) is depicted with the sharp sword of Damocles hanging over his head by the thinnest of threads. Perhaps Theseus learns this lesson, as he moves steadily away from militarism in Chaucer's narrative, changing the rules of the tournament to prevent mortal combat and ending the strife with Thebes through the diplomacy of the parliament. Yet, even in the mock battle of the tournament, death cannot be prevented, despite his best efforts. Is Chaucer suggesting that the prospect of limited warfare for some greater purpose (in this case the eventual pacification of Thebes) is human folly? Chaucer's
'Among the heaps of dead they found by chance two young knights, both pierced with many grievous wounds. They both wore the same coat of arms, richly embroidered: one was a knight called Palamon, the other Arcite. They were neither dead nor alive, but the heralds knew by their coat-armours that they were of the royal blood of Thebes, born of two sisters.'The first and grandest of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, The Knight's Tale is an epic story of love and war, shot through with a compelling dark thread.Simon Webb's prose translation brings out all the richness of the original, and his informative introduction sets the Tale in its legendary and historical context.
When an eclectic group of pilgrims take turns telling tales while on the road to Canterbury Cathedral, the Knight tells the tale of Arcite and Palamon, two young aristocrats from Thebes who are captured in battle by Theseus. When the captives spy the beautiful maiden Emily from their prison window, they immediately fall in love and become rivals. This special edition of “The Knight’s Tale,” one of the most memorable tales from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, includes “The General Prologue,” as well as original Middle English and modern translated versions of this timeless text. HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperCollins short-stories collection to build your digital library.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE TED HUGHES PRIZE 2015 Tabard Inn to Canterb'ry Cathedral, Poet pilgrims competing for free picks, Chaucer Tales, track by track, it's the remix From below-the-belt base to the topnotch; I won't stop all the clocks with a stopwatch when the tales overrun, run offensive, or run clean out of steam, they're authentic and we're keeping it real, reminisce this: Chaucer Tales were an unfinished business. In Telling Tales award-winning poet Patience Agbabi presents an inspired 21st-Century remix of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales retelling all of the stories, from the Miller's Tale to the Wife of Bath's in her own critically acclaimed poetic style. Celebrating Chaucer's Middle-English masterwork for its performance element as well as its poetry and pilgrims, Agbabi's newest collection is utterly unique. Boisterous, funky, foul-mouthed, sublimely lyrical and bursting at the seams, Telling Tales takes one of Britain's most significant works of literature and gives it thrilling new life.
The "Knight's Tale" is one of the most controversial of all the Canterbury Tales. Does Chaucer portray Theseus, the duke of Athens whose actions dominate the tale, as an ideal ruler, one who is noble, wise and chivalrous, or does the duke's behaviour reveal him to be immoral, self-seeking and tyrannical? This book assesses the duke's conduct and thought in terms of the ideals set out in medieval mirrors for princes, particularly in Giles of Rome's "De Regimine Principum." It argues that, when judged by the standards of these works, Theseus can be seen as a model prince in terms of his self-government ('ethics'), his rule of his household ('economics'), his governance of his realm ('politics) and his cosmography and philosophy.
The Knight's Tale: Or, Palamon and Arcite by Geoffrey Chaucer Pdf
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