Don’t get me wrong… That shift from the idealized to the reality in Fragment I? Pretty brilliant. The changes in tone as you move from character to character? Also great. Your use of archetypes is stellar. I mean, hell, you basically helped establish those archetypes. You’ve got a wicked sense of humor, and I doubt anyone can rhyme half as well. Though every blurb about your life that I’ve read has been extremely dry and vague, I like to imagine you were the fourteenth century equivalent of a rock star. Why else would the king give you a daily stipend of a gallon of wine?
So, you see, Chaucer, I have no small amount of respect for you, but I still want to punch you in the neck. If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t an iota of respect for Dante, and I fully intend to grind whatever shameful excuse for manhood that he calls his testicles under my heel once I see him in the hereafter. A neck punch is really getting off light in comparison, don’t you think? And don’t get me started on Hawthorne or Melville…
Honestly, my desire to punch you in the throat might even pass if you so choose to rejoin us here in the land of the living and read your lovely tales to me. Should you be even half so sexy as Paul Bettany made you seem, I may even be inclined to offer you some wine afterward. Wouldn’t that be far better than a neck punch?
Sincerely,
Debs heart
Debs heart
