"OOH" "AAH" "Jajaja"

The drunk Miller decides he will tell a tale. I imagine the scene like this:
Everybody is in a bar, a cantine kind of bar, cheering and drinking beer and wine. Some are brave enough to tell a tale, both for the fun of it and to brag. The knight, as to be expected comes first, most of what he says sound like BS but definitely a very knighty tale. Then the miller, who did not want to be left behind stands up, so drunk he even says “And therfore if that I mysspeke or seye, Wyte it the ale of Southwerk, I you preye.” (Prologue, lines 3139-3140) And begins to tell his tale with no embarrassment, whatsoever. The noblemen are in the cantine listening too, and the rest of the village, aware of what every person will say and if it involves them or hoping not be on spotlight for any mistake of sin they’ve committed. It is gossip! Pure gossip.

The Miller wants to proof that he can have tale just as the knight has tales and that they are as well interesting. It reminds me of my friends, drunk, trying to tell an anecdote and inventing half of it partly because they are drunk and partly because they want to make it interesting. The whole scene reminds me of a bunch of people getting drunk and gossiping about each others lives and lies and truths surge from the tales causing “ooh”s and “aah”s form the listeners.

Redundantly The Miller’s Tale if far off the Knight’s Tale. It is a joke. And may be that the miller, apart from wanting to claim his status, (and he does as a miller indeed) he wants to be funny. “This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,” (Tale, lines 3806-3807) This is hilarious. Any story with a fart in it is hilarious. The miller did end up being funny, but further away from the nobility of a Knight.

Just Wondering

There was one phrase that I really liked. In The Knight’s Tale “Then is it best, for a worthy fame, To die when he has the most fame.” (Part IV lines 3055-3056). It made me go back to the last match of Andre Agassi, in the U.S Open, I was little and I asked my father “Why is he retiring when he is so young? He can still play Tennis” and he told me “Sweetheart, it is best to retire when you are at your highest point and not when you are forgotten and defeated”. I’ve always remembered that. I still wonder how can you calculate when you are at your highest point. How can you have the wisdom to stop and not stay there for the greed of more fame or victories and ending up loosing everything. It applies to Poker too. And with Aquiles, that it also has a connection with The Knight’s Tale, since it takes place in Greece. “When Hector was brought, just recently slain, To Troy. Alas, the lamentation that was there,” (Part IV lines 3832-3833) Referring to the pain of loosing someone. Aquiles was killed being a celebrity, the bravest hero and the worst villain. He did it just right, by chance though, he didn’t choose to live at his highest point. Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, even Heath Ledger just after playing the role of Joker in The Dark Knight (The Knight’s Tale, The Dark Knight, see the connection?), but they died, they left tragically, if they had not died at that time, would they have been strong enough to leave when they had to?

Painfully Inlove

What is it with love and suffering? Why are they always linked and connected and even seem to be synonyms? I guess, like many musicians have said, love is a disease. And happens to be that in The Knight’s Tale, love is the issue, too. I guess there isn’t a way to escape it. I’ve noticed that about 90% of the songs in the world are about love, or finding a love mate, or the pain that love causes, among all the problems that brings falling for someone, that must not be a coincidence. Not only in music, almost every novel, and book I’ve read there is a love story in it. And The Knight’s Tale isn’t the exception.

The story is basic, two men, that are cousins, fall for the same woman, and they end up fighting to death for her. It kinda is cliché in a way, but it is the first time that I know of someone that fights till, literary, death, for love. Poor Arcite ends up without Emelye. There is some bit of hyperbole in The Knight’s Tale, but since it is a poem it is to be expected. For example, from lines 2770 to 2782, Arcite is lamenting, woeing, and saying goodbye to Emelye, hurtfully. “That I have suffered for you, and so long! Alas, the death! Alas, my Emelye!” (Part IV lines 2772-2773) I feel sorry for him. It is physical pain he is suffering for the love he feels, apart from the fact that he is dying. I really hope that doesn’t happen to me, neither the dying part nor the falling in love.

On the other hand, there is the winner story. Lucky Palamon, gets to stay with Emelye after a god’s level fight, marry her and live happily ever after. “For now is Palamon in complete happiness, Living in bliss, in riches, and in health, And Emelye loves him so tenderly,” (Part IV lines 3101-3103) Every man’s dream. This tale shows the two sides of love, the happily ever after, the one we are seeking and will always seek, because of what I’ve said earlier in my previous entry, we are condemned to the pursuit of happiness, and there is the painful, heart breaking, horrible part of love. The Ying and Yang, good and evil. Love is not just hearts and roses.

Con-nections

I see some connection to many things. The first part of The Knight’s Tale felt to me as if I had read that before. I feel it was some resemblance to the way the Genesis is written. Even though the Genesis is not a poem and is therefore not written in verse, the phrases are short and concise, every phrase, or verse of the poem is a sentence that has its own meaning and if it is taken away from the poem it still makes sense, alone. The same principle applies to the Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (1:1 Genesis) it alone makes sense. The same as if you take “There was a duke who was called Theseus;”(Part 1 860). You get the idea.

Apart form the fact that the way it is written resembles to me the Bible, there were some contents that made me do the connection too. The word “God” is repeated various times and the driven concept is the same, as holy authority and final judge, creator, king of kings, etc… It talks about mercy, and treason, punishment, regard, even pursuit of happiness which got me thinking in Confucius and the Tao Te Ching the eternal pursuit of happiness that also reminds me of The Great Gatsby and Seize The Day. “We seek eagerly after felicity, But we go wrong very often, truly.” (Part 1 1266-1267) It is an explanation of what we do and do not do, how we do it, how it depends on each person. We go back to the same questions and may be similar answers, no matter if the text is 3 years old or 200 years old, we are still the same. Referring to the Genesis, The Knight’s Tale even refers to a serpent, “Alas, I see a serpent or a thief, That has done mischief to many a true man,” (Part 1 1325-1326) it is the same a thief, a sense of evil, just like the serpent that made Eva eat the forbidden fruit.

Evidently The Knight’s Tale has a connection to Greek mythology, Athens, the duke Theseus, the goddess and the magical powers, but ironically it talks about the God, the one and only God. For now, I have a bunch of questions, just like the universe and human kind has always had, waiting to be answered.

Nice Ride

I agree, point A to point B, different devices or modes of transportation, comparing books, life, big allegory and all.
My way of looking at is that we, at the end, all get there by mind. What do I mean? We get to our destination (destiny, fate, goal…) through the pathways of our mind, imagination some say. I might get to Antarctica right now, at the same time I’m writing this, even feel cold. Maybe not even imagination but through consciousnes, senses and awareness that we are moving.
Probably I’m off track with what you are trying to transmit to us but I guess Don Quijote wouldn’t have horseback ride if Cervantes had not done it by mind previously, get me?
I hope I get to the end of this course safe, physically and mentally. In whatever mode of transportation I choose, or you choose, since you are the author of the novel AP Literature. And if I get to the end of this course hurt, I hope it was because I had a nice ride.

I Might Not Get There

RANG
No more sleeping late.
or staring at the ceiling.
Read, study, memorize, study, write, read,
write.
RANG
failed?