Thursday, December 28, 2006

Short Story - Canterbury Tales - Volume III, The



The Friar's Tale
The Summoner's Tale
The Lawyer's Tale
The Seaman's Tale
The Prioress's Tale
The Manciple's Tale
The Physician's Tale

Seven more Tales presented here in unabridged modern verse - an ideal way to appreciate the genuinely funny and droll talent of England's early master storyteller. The group continues its pilgrimage to Canterbury, talking with each other, their interaction mediated (sometimes) by the affable Host - Chaucer himself. Eight leading British actors bring the medieval world into the 21st century, and at least in terms of character, not much seems to have changed!

The Canterbury Tales, written near the end of Chaucer's life and hence towards the close of the fourteenth century, Is perhaps the greatest English literary work of the Middle Ages: yet it speaks to us today with almost undimmed clarity and relevance.

Chaucer imagines a group of twenty-nine pilgrims who meet in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, intent on making the traditional journey to the martyr's shrine of St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. Harry Bailly landlord of the Tabard, proposes that the company should entertain themselves on the road with a storytelling competition. The teller of the best tale will be rewarded with a supper at the others' expense when the travellers return to London. Chaucer never completed this elaborate scheme - each pilgrim was supposed to tell four tales, but in fact we only have twenty-four altogether - yet, with the pieces of linking narrative and the prologues to each tale, the work as a whole constitutes a marvellously varied evocation of the medieval world which also goes beyond its period to penetrate (humorously, gravely tolerantly) human nature itself.

Chaucer, as a member of this company of pilgrims, presents himself with mock innocence as the admiring observer of his fellows, depicted in the General Prologue. Many of these are clearly rogues - the coarse, cheating Miller, the repulsive yet compelling Pardoner - yet in each of them Chaucer finds something human, often a sheer vitality or love of life which is irresistible: the Monk may prefer hunting to prayer, but he is after all a manly man, to be an abbot able. Perhaps only the unassuming, devoted Parson and his humbly labouring brother the Ploughman rise entirely above Chaucer's teasing irony; certainly the Parson's fellow clergy and religious officers belong to a Church riddled with gross corruption. Everyone, it seems, is on the make, in a world still recovering from the ravages of the Black Death.


Publisher: NAXOS
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Narrator: Full Cast Performance
ISBN: 9 62634 304 4

Forgiven
A Deadly Accident
The Christian Kids Theater group is devastated by a tragedy greater than any of them could've imagined. Now their director, Katy Hart, must find a way to walk the kids through their grief and give them a reason to believe again. But will hatred and revenge have the final word?

An Aching Emptiness
Dayne Matthews is at the top of the Hollywood list, working on what could be his best movie yet. Still, he is empty and unfocused, aching for real love and the family he'll never know. Then a friend tells him about a teaching center and a way to become like God. Is this the answer Dayne's been searching for?

A Shocking Discovery
John Baxter reconnects with an old friend and shares a buried secret, one that he and his wife shared all their married lives. Now - in his wife's honor - he decides to continue a very special search. But in the process he makes a critical mistake. What will happen when one of his daughters stumbles onto a letter she was never supposed to see? In this season for the Baxters, grace and redemption will play a greater role than ever before.

Publisher: Brilliance Audio Inc
Author: Karen Kingsbury
Narrator: Sandra Burr
ISBN: 9781597379632

A room for the night
A man and wife rent a room for the night....only the had room burnt down years earlier and the tenants died in the fire....
Publisher: Immortal Audio
Author: Unknown
Narrator: Don DuBose
ISBN:

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