|
About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
|
Everyday Canvas
"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
David Whyte
This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts.
| |
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was set during a spring pilgrimage, was one of the great early contributions to English Literature.
What are some words you use today that would not have been around in the late 1300's? Do you think you'd have a tough time talking with people back then? Why or Why not?
-----------------
Some of the Middle English words since the 1300s have evolved in meaning. The word “above” meant superior then, and “able” suitable, “bath” cauldron, “cow” a crow-like bird, “repair” visitors, “undertake” affirm, etc. Other words like coy, paramour, potage, accord etc. have remained more or less the same. Some of the words are similar or the same but are written differently like symple for simple and theef for thief.
Canterbury Tales, however, is quite understandable when you put your mind to it and use a Middle English dictionary.
“Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duc that highte Theseus;
Of Atthenes he was lord and governour,
And in his tyme swich a conquerour,
That gretter was ther noon under the sonne.”
Once as old stories tell us,
There was a duke called Theseus;
In Athens he was lord and governor
And in his time such a conqueror
Greater than him was not there under the sun
I am guessing those guys wouldn’t understand our talk well, and I’d have a difficult time conversing with them in the way they would understand, especially if I talked street talk such as using the stuff in our Urban Dictionary. If they could somehow come to our day, some of our four letter and f words would make their hairs stand on end, since cursing or talking the “ungodly” talk was taboo for them. I can just imagine the expressions on their faces if they heard our ways of communication.
Here is a link to more on Canterbury tales and Middle English, if anyone wishes to read or hear the stories from their original.
http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm |
© Copyright 2024 Joy (UN: joycag at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Joy has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
|
Comment • View 1 comment 
