Courtly Love and Medieval Traditions

Reflection 2: In which Briana considers her lack of progress

November 16, 2006 at 11:47 pm (Reflection Papers)

1. I am slowly progressing though Troilus, with emphasis on the slow aspect. I am in the middle of book IV right now, and that took some serious effort to get so caught up. My problem right now is that I am dedicated to reading Chaucer in the original English, without modernization. It takes a lot longer than I had hoped. But I have been reading other people’s reflections recently and some have read the original Chaucer followed by the modernization and that may be the way to go. It would require a lot more time than I have been setting aside however, so I need to work on that.

2. I am often surprised by the depth of meaning that Chaucer utilizes in his works. I am especially intrigued by his use of spelling to change the meaning and interpretation of his words. I enjoy how Chaucer plays with language to manipulate his characters and audience. It sometimes seems like his personality as a writer shines through his style and word choice. He just seems like a very fun, personable guy and I love that we can feel like we know him just by reading his words. He invests himself in his writing, and I can appreciate that (even when I need you to help me appreciate his little jokes and humorous spelling changes).

3. I intend to begin the second half of my portfolio this weekend. My weeks and my weekends up until recently were filled up with Rugby, but now that that is over I have gotten books out of the library and all I need to do is force myself to write. If I get at least three done before the week of the fourth I will be very pleased with my work. I have a bad habit of procrastination (which I am sure you have figured out by now) so I really need to focus my attentions on this and other large projects for other classes. They are all due the same week, so I intend on having all of them mostly done before that week rolls around. I am very interested in gender studies for medieval literature, so I checked out Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages and hopefully that will help me some. It may end up being a history book more than a literature book so while it may be interesting I might have to find another book for my review.