The Nature of Things

As a callow college student long ago, I served my time in Mrs. Robinson's English literature class. I despised Mrs. Robinson for reasons that had nothing to do with literature, but at long last I can admit that the professor had a real passion for her subject and she did her best to pass that passion along to her students. She was particularly passionate about early English literature. She introduced us to Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. She   tried innovative ways of getting us involved in literature. When it came time to study Shakespeare, she had us list the plants that were mentioned by the bard in his works and then we planted a "Shakespeare garden" on the grounds of the college. She was also a great believer in memorization of poetry. And so, when we got to Chaucer, she had us memorize the prologue to The Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English. Each of us then had to recite the prologue before our classmates in our best ME accent. I memo...

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour, Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his half cours y-ronne And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open yë (So priketh hem nature in hir corages), Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende... How many of us spent part of our freshman year in college learning that prologue to  The Canterbury Tales  in Middle English and then struggling to recite it for our English literature professor? Surprisingly, although I can't always remember what I did last week, I can still remember much of that prologue that I learned all of those long years ag...