True Love in Chaucer's "The Franklin's Tale"

that we've seen magic, uh, romance, a little bit of folklore, a lot of courtly love and longing and the pains of erotic love. And these are all the elements, uh, that make the Breton Lays enchanting and interesting. And it's these are also all of the elements that make up the narrative architecture of Chaucer's The Franklin's Tale. Uh, the one and only Breton Lei of the Canterbury Tales.

When I was designing this course, I almost split it in half doing two lays from Maria de France and then uh Chaucers the Franklin's tale and the man of laws tale which is it it has a feel of a Breton lay but it's it's not in the style and I decided no we should we should read three of Maria def France and then end with Franklin's tale which is what we've done. So, welcome everyone to the fourth uh and final lecture uh in our course at the Breton Lays. [snorts] Uh this is the uh last last meeting in our course on the Lays. Um and we've had about 200 years, we've gone about 200 years in advance.

So last week we finished uh Mar France, we were reading Lanval. So now we go to the the late 14th century. So, uh, this is how it begins. And you can read this for free on the Chaucer site.

I just want to read the beginning again in case you missed it. We'll be reading a lot of of the uh, Middle English tonight in the lecture. Whoops. Okay.

So, here's how it starts. These older gentle bretonons in her days of diverse adventures modern layers reed in her first Britain tonga which layers with her instruments desa or Ellis read in him for her presence and un of him have in remembrance which e shall say with goodwill as he can. The main difference here in the language of course is that Marita France wrote in the Angloorman French while Chaucer wrote in the middle English. The two works represent two entirely different languages and moments in those languages literatures.

They also reflect a massive shift in the um landscape of of of the language itself. Chaucer's writing again 200 years after Maria de France Mar de France 12th century Chaucer uh late 14th and you'll remember that William the conqueror invaded Britain in 1066 when ...