By a Woman Writt

1973, 1974 Penguin edition
edited by Joan Goulianos
By a Woman Writt [sic]: Literature from Six Centuries by and about Women
Original price unknown, bought used for $4.25
Worn paperback
C+

Goulianos selects women's writings in English from 14th-century Margery Kempe to modern poet Muriel Rukeyser, so this collection is understandably uneven.  I most enjoyed Aphra Behn, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, and Sylvia Ashton-Warner.  In the introduction, Goulianos suggests some themes, like fear and motherhood, but I don't feel like there's enough commentary or organization here.  Also, she doesn't give dates to all the pieces, and sometimes not even birth or death dates for the authors, so my labels are limited to the wider eras and I can't include the 20th-centuries decades, other than the 1970s of course.  (Not that there aren't a lot of labels on the post anyway.)  This is a serviceable introduction to women's literature, deliberately omitting some of the better known writers (although Wollstonecraft and daughter Mary are here), without going overly obscure.

The Canterbury Tales

Roughly 1385 to 1400, this edition 1982
Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales
$2.95
A bit shabby condition but not bad
C


This Bantam Classic edition has just a few tales: The Prologue, The Knight, The Miller, The Wife of Bath, The Merchant, The Franklin, The Pardoner, The Prioress, and the Nun's Priest.  The original Middle English is on the left-hand page, the modern translation on the right.  I mostly read the translation.  While the stories have some nice details and turns of phrase, and I appreciate Chaucer's ability to write in the styles of a diverse group of people, I can't say I was particularly gripped by this reread.  My favorite tale was the Nun's Priest's, because I like the idea of a flock of educated chickens.  The Prioress's Tale would have to be my least favorite, not only because of the anti-Semitism, but because the story (murdered kid keeps singing about the Virgin Mary) doesn't really interest me.  The translation, by A. Kent Hieatt and Constance Hieatt is well done (although they keep euphemizing "queynte" in the many places it occurs), and the tales move along briskly, with the exception of course of The Knight's Tale.  Verdict:  Keep but not reread more than the once a decade I seem to do.

The Lais of Marie de France

Late 1100s (probably 1170s or 1180s), this translation from 1986
Marie de France
The Lais of Marie de France
$9.95
Decent condition 
C+

Sort of an odd book to start with, since not much is known about the author or the text.  A lai is a short story-poem, but this translation puts the twelve lais into prose.  Compared to some medieval works, this is pretty accessible, since it's simple courtly romances.  Marie has a conversational style, which can be cute, like when she swears a story really happened, but can get a bit annoying when she recaps the plot in a seven-page story.  Also, some of the details are a bit ridiculous-- the woman who carries around her lover's sword for twenty years until the day she can pass it on to their lovechild, or the weasel who knows of a plant that brings weasels and people back to life-- and I don't know how I'm supposed to take this.  As parody?  As folktale?  Still, should I keep and someday reread this book?  Sure.