Read The Classics: The Canterbury Tales April 12, 2009

The Multnomah County Library invites you to take part in a new book series, where you can read some of the best all-time classics and discuss them under the leadership of Dr. Michael A. Faletra, professor of medieval literature at Reed College. Participation is free, but registration is required. You can register online at http://www.multcolib.org/events/classics/middle.html
A limited number of books will be available free of charge for those who pre-register.

Before there was Shakespeare or Austen or Dickens or Joyce, there was Chaucer, one of the greatest writers of medieval Europe. The premise of his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, is simple. Twenty–nine pilgrims engage in a storytelling contest while on the road to the shrine of St. Thomas in Canterbury; the winner getting a free meal and all he or she can drink. Although the game seems straightforward, the stories the pilgrims tell as they try to out–narrate and outwit one another open up a myriad of perspectives on medieval English society, challenging the accepted social mores of the day and raising many profound questions about the oppressive English medieval class system, about the status of women, and about the power of stories to change our lives.

The enigmatic Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) led a life full of contradictions. He was a man of humble origins (his father was a vintner), but he rose through the ranks of the English bureaucracy to become an important diplomat, customs officer, and perhaps even the confidante of kings. Chaucer lived in an age of turbulent change, coming in the wake of the Black Plague, peasant rebellions, religious heresies, and the Hundred Years' War, and his work raises many thorny issues for audiences who were seeking new answers to old questions. Join us at the Central Library for a fun and engaging exploration of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the most modern (and even post–modern!) work of the Middle Ages.

Official Website: http://www.multcolib.org/events/classics/middle.html