OK, you win. I have neither the strength nor the patience.
At 01:58 AM 9/20/2000 +0100, you wrote:
>From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> Chaucer was a 14th Century Catholic,
>
>Well, there wasn't much alternative in Western Europe at that time (though
>I think someone else on this thread raised the possiblity of his Lollard
>sympathies).
>
>> and I should think it credible that he
>> wanted to be "oon of hem that at the day of doom shulle be saved,"
>
>Don't we all?
>
>> whatever
>> Whyatt's motivation may have been. But maybe he was just pretending.
>Maybe
>> Dante was, too, and St. Augustine, and Matthew Mark Luke and John. And
>even
>> Gerard Manley Hopkins. Maybe everyone has always been just like us, or
>> perhaps just like you. Maybe history will never end because it's never
>begun.
>
>This multiplication of examplars would seem to prove my point rather than
>otherwise. Though as far as I'm aware, the evangels and Augustine were
>theologians (?) rather than poets. The Chaucerian renunciation (as with
>the others I cited) was of profane writings. Augustine (in that old
>chestnut) regretted the pear-stealing incident, but not renouncing his
>mistress and illegitimate son, and went on to write (all too copiously)
>_The City of God_. Then returned in the pre-Renaissance to chat with
>Petrarch who (Ermina I'm sure can refine this) either did or didn't
>renounce/regret his celebration of Laura. Hopkins (other than with _The
>Wreck ..._) may not have actively attempted to publish but he didn't burn
>his manuscripts -- as did who?
>
>Perhaps those who +seriously+ renounced their works have encountered a
>perduring silence. Those who remain to protest it failed in their
>attempts.
>
>Incidentally, Chaucer goes to some pains to make sure his readers know just
>+what+ he's renouncing -- Troilus, The Book of the Duchess, The Canterbury
>Tales -- surely a bit of self-promotion here? And given the exceptions
>made for the translation of Boethius, books of legends, saint's live's and
>devotions, where do we place The Parson's Tale or that farrago of
>anti-semitic nonsense, The Prioress's Tale?
>
>Also, given (if it is given) the ambiguity and irony of "Chaucer"/Chaucer,
>who indeed utters the renunciation? The speaker (not the author) of The
>Tale of Sir Thopas ...?
>
>Robin Hamilton
>
>We have eaten garlic everyone.
>I know that if I to hell be gone,
>I know I shall not go alone ...
>
>
>
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