LanguageInChaucer
From Wyclif
Please put all your questions and comments regarding Middle English, the glosses in our text, and Chaucer's use of language on this page, underneath the image below: the famous frontispiece of the Corpus Christi College manuscript of Troilus and Criseyde.
Two websites, with audio, for practicing your Middle English:
http://academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/Audio_Index.html
(This one is part of the huge Chaucer Metapage site and has fairly fast-loading selections, predominantly from the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales.)
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/less-0.htm
(This is part of the Harvard Chaucer Page. There is a lot of information on particular sounds, with sample lines for illustration. It's arranged in a "Teach Yourself" lesson-by-lesson format, but if you're in a hurry, it's easy to skip from one lesson to the next.)
Question 1
Okay, well, why are the footnotes in our text so terrible? They note words that need no explanation, while leaving out ones that are difficult to find in the glossary. Lust? I do not need the meaning of lust. Now, sykes, that is new to me. (Matt Bonnitt, Feb 2)
That's a pretty good question, Matt. Now, I'd like to see some good answers. Students: why is lust glossed, and not sykes? (CW, Feb 2)
Responses to 1
I feel lust was sighted to show that Chaucer looked at reading as being very aloring and full of passion, which would bring to write his feelings on paper. It is clearly not the way we use the word lust today. (Annette Cole)
I had that same question. I can't find the word "sykes" now that I am looking for it. Does it have anything to do with psyche?? Whose discretion are footnotes at? (Leslie U, 2-2-06)
This has nothing to do with the citation question, so be warned. I find that the most interesting thing to note about the works is the number of obvious borrowings from other languages. I was at times fairly certain that a word was of Scandinavian or Latin origin judging simply by its form. An example from The Parliament of Fowls would be the verb tok in line 94, a past form of taken. The Old Norse equivalent is clearly similar, its principal parts being taka, tekr, tok,toku, and tekinn (inf., 3rd sg. pres., 3rd sg. past, 3rd pl. past, and PP), the last form apparently not related to the popular Playstation fighter. In any event, I think it would be interesting to hear from those better able to detect French or other colorings in the works, and to discuss their possible literary influences. I myself am attempting to find information on Rory McTurk’s theory that Chaucer may have, through intermediaries in Ireland, been familiar to some degree with the works of Snorri Sturluson. (Jordan Moore, 2-2-06)
I can see how this wiki will get very chaotic really, really quickly!
Jordan that is a very nice observation.
I wonder if words are cited more if they "appear" similar to other words that we have in Modern English. If that's the case, then maybe the word like "lust" is cited and not all of the other words? I've always wondered just how much effort is needed when adding footnotes and endnotes to editions of works of literature. Too many and the reader is popping up and down the page trying to read even the basic of stuff that is marked. (K.Williams, 2-2-06)
I had the same question. Now I am thinking that the words which are "glossed" are mostly words that seem similar to other words that we have in modern English, and it is done so as to avoid confusion. (Andreea Boti, 2-7-06)
Words change meaning over time in every language. I looked through the Oxford English Dictionary and "Lust" changed meaning from "To Delight in" to "To Desire." Therefore, these words are possibly cited to not mix them up with modern defintions as pointed out by "K". (Adam K. Duda, SIT, 2-7-06)
[Thank you, A.K.D, SIT. It's very nice to see someone else joining us here, and you are quite right--and you, too, K., and Andreea--about the necessity of glossing words we still have in Modern English but whose meanings have changed. I'd still like to see someone address the question about why "sykes" is not glossed. CW, Feb. 8]
Where was "sykes" spotted at? Perhaps knowing where it occured in Chaucer would help? Just a thought.
Silverluna, Feb. 8th
There are at least two occurrences of sykes in The Parliament of Fowls. Sykes is in line 246, and sikes occurs in the same stanze, line 248. However, now that the class is engaged in reading Troilus and Criseyde, there will be plenty of instances of this word.--CW, Feb. 11
I'm not afraid to admit I'm not a big fan of Chaucer and middle english. The footnotes explaining what words mean what, is so time consuming, that I have downloaded translated versions just for the sake of time. I do however go back and look over the middle english version to see the differences.-Adam Rhodes 15Feb06
I am including here a link to a site that shows you William Caxton's two editions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, probably printed in 1476 and 1483. (according to the site) they are housed in the British Library. I am very interested in how manuscripts were copied and created before the printing press.I included this here, mainly because there isn't another page that covers this, but also because a part of learning about a language is seeing how it looked in the original manuscripts and texts. Sometimes this is not possible, due to the natural decay of paper, so it is a real treat to see the original works. I also wonder about how Caxton's two editions differ.
http://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/homepage.html
Silverluna, Feb. 21st.
[I should point out, for those who might not know, that Caxton's edtions are the earliest examples of printed versions of Chaucer. Would anyone like to look around for sites about the manuscripts themselves? Just this past year, there has been considerable interest in Adam Pinkhurst, who is likely to have been a professional scribe Chaucer employed. Students might also like to investigate the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales.]CW
Thanks Carol. I would be interested,I was trying to find information about what the Chaucer manuscripts looked like.I didn't find the original manuscripts when I googled. I'll check into Adam Pinkhurst. Silverluna, Feb. 22nd
I'd just like to say that the use of dialect in the Reeve's Tale is a lot of fun. The occasional substitution of "ik" and "twa" for "ich/I" and "tweye" makes it fairly evident, as does the use of hitherto foreign words, such as "slyk" and "swa". Tolkien was apparently impressed with Chaucer's skills as a philologist, and I think it might be interesting to discuss his essay on the matter, as well as this aspect of Chaucer's works in general.
Jordan Moore, March 11th.
This is a link to an article on Adam Pinkhurst, which suggests that Pinkhurst was the chief scribe for Chaucer’s original manuscript. The article was published 19th of July 2004.
Here is a quoted the “lead” of the article:
Professor Linne Mooney, Visiting Fellow at Corpus Christi College, has identified Geoffrey Chaucer's scribe, who wrote the earliest and most authoritative copies of The Canterbury Tales, as Adam Pinkhurst, a scrivener of London. This important discovery shows from other documents that Chaucer actually employed the scribe who wrote these copies of the Tales, and lends support to recent scholarly opinion that one or both of them were written before Chaucer’s death in 1400 and therefore may have been written under his direction.
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/press/dpp/2004071901
The argument that Chaucer’s work was not finished in his lifetime is surprising to me, elements of the tales and books are so elegantly arranged I have a very hard time believing that the scribes finished the work without Chaucer’s masterful eye.
I don't think anyone will know for sure when the manuscripts were"finished" (in the sense of what we call "the finished masterpiece"), either before or after Chaucer's death.
I am also interested in the surname origins of "Pinkhurst", if I find it, I will add it here, simply because I like the name. <g>
--Silverluna, 3-30-06
I have found a couple descriptions that I will be borrowing from Chaucer very soon. 1) to describe a story as a spell and 2) a person's hair being the color of saffron
Blueridgeborn, 4/6/06
Holy Eleventh Hour Posting, Batman! Be that as it may, I see this "sykes" business was never resolved. One might consider some strictly practical concerns, namely that most glosses will stop glossing a word, or at least do so less frequently, as the text goes on, assuming that the reader will become familiar with it over time. If you casually flip through the text, you'll notice the gloss is quite a bit longer at the beginning than it is at the end. It's simply cheaper for the printer this way. Some enterprising person might look to see if "sykes" was indeed glossed earlier on in the text. If so, it's sort of a shame we started with the texts toward the back of the book. - T. Reed 5/8 By the way, what happened to the Floyd?
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