Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales: Knight's Tale

Flag Football

 Before I begin discussing Chaucer's Knight's Tale, I thought I would share a glimpse of my sitcom-life to all those viewers out there (which will also explain why this was not posted on Friday Night):

After returning home from school on Friday, I decided to turn on some Netflix and heat up some frozen chimichongas for dinner... which ended up being a weekend long mistake. About ten minutes into Season two of The Tutors, the television turned off. Handy electrition that I am (I'm not), I decided that a quick look behind the television would automatically fix it, and  unplugging the surge protector from the wall would double the fix and act as a "restart" to the wiring. The old wires in the ghetto builidng did not like my idea, and instead shocked me so hard I thought my heart stopped. And also shut down the power to the entire second story of my apartment building. Objectively, I don't think my neighbors will send me Christmas cards this year.

Long weekend short: I just got electricity back, and have been assured that my electrocution did not result in death and that I should sustain no long term damage.

Back to Knight's Tale!

A summary:

     The story starts with Palamon and Arcita, two cousins who have pinky-swore loyalty to one another, right before Thesus throws them in jail. While hanging out in prison, Palamon leans out his window, creeps on a green dressed woman standing below (named Emily), and instantly falls in love. Arcita follows suit rather quickly, and they start one of several tussels: which-cousin-loves-the-woman-they've-never-met-more-than-the-other-cousin. Arcita draws a get-out-of-jail-free card and leaves Palamon mooning in the prison window, but his one requirement is that he cannot return to the city in which is lady-love lives. He lasts for a full half-page, makes a fake ID, and breaks back into the city with the new name of Philostrate and immediately gets a job working for Emily.

      The system works for about seven years until Palamon gets tired of being in jail and "Monte Cristos" himself from his cell. While loitering in some bushes, he overhears his cousin talking to himself about his last seven years of service, gets upset, and they fistfight in the grove over the left ring finger of Emily. Theseus rides up, calls a time out, and goes from mad to soft hearted when he finds out what he two crooks are fighting about. His solution to the mess: a tournament! Each cousin will go find a 100 knights to be on their teams and after a certain amount of time (something like 50 weeks?)  everyone will meet up and have a mock war-olympics. While the guys are off recruiting, Theseus hangs at home and builds three temples to prepare for the tournament. One for Venus, the Goddess of Love, one for Mars, the God of War, and one for Diana, the Goddess of Chastity. 

   Before the glorified duel, Emily, Palamon, and Arcita all go to pray at seperate temples. Palamon goes to Venus where he wants to "Possess Emily" and promises that if he wins he'll thank Venus every day. Arcita goes to Mars where he bro-dawgs it up with the God and parallels his situation to a similar scene from Mars' past.The fist bump and Mars leaves shouting the word, "victory!" Finally, Emily finally gets to add her two cents in by voicing a prayer to Diana, where she tells her Goddess that she doesn't want to marry anyone and really just wants to go hunting. Diana comes down to her in a physical form and tells Emily to buck up, she's going to be marrying somebody.

    Tournament time, and Theseus is thought great because he comes up with a game very similar to flag football (except with sharpened spears) where everyone gets to live at the end. Whichever cousin gets sent to time-out first loses, and it ends up being Palamon. While Palamon is pouting and struggling with the referee, Arcita is doing a victory dance until his horse rears up "by chance" and hits him hard enough in the head to cause blood clotting that will kill him a couple of days later. Lots of weeping and a touching funeral scene later (commemorated by naked men wrestling?), Theseus takes Emily and Palamon and marries them, and they live happily ever after.

Something worth squinting at is definitly the love triangle that Chaucer creates out of Emily, Palamon, and Arcita. Palamon and Arcita (from now nicknamed Pal and Arc) start off as almost the same character-- just two cousins hanging out being hated by Theseus. While hanging out in prison, Chaucer offers the reader the real take on the two different guys. Pal looks out the window, cries out in a theatrical, "Oh!" and falls head over heels in love with a woman strolling through grass. He praises Venus, and thanks the Goddess for showing him his true love (an important detail to remember--Pal also visits Venus' temple before the big showdown) while Arc has apoplexy over Pal's sudden outburst. Looking out the window, Arc also falls in love: "That if Palamon was wounded sore,/ Arcita was hurt as much as he, or more." From this point,Chaucer separates Arc and Pal into two distinct characters: Pal, the loving romaticisor who fawns at the temple of Venus and escapes prison to join his lady love, and Arc, the conniving trickster who sneaks back into Greece, fistbumps Mars before the tournament, and ends up winning Emily's hand in marriage through glorified fake violence. Both men are incredibly jealous of one another throughout the rest of the tale, a jealousy that ends up "accidentally" sending a blood clot to the brain of Arc. The death bed, or the large head wound, knocks Arc out of senseless competition with his cousin, and the two, in a cycle of sibling-like rivalry, forget that they've spent the last decade fighting over a woman neither of them has ever talked to, and re-embrace the true love of the story: family. The cousin/brothers remember the kind men they were before the Emily-business started, and just before Arc takes his last shallow breath, he gives Pal his most treasured item... Emily. "So in this world right now I know no one/ So worthy to be loved as Palamon..." The trophy the two cousins fought over for at least 60 pages is handed over to Pal as a token of Arc's goodwill. His last will and testament a wish that Pal live happily ever after. And guiltlessly, Pal takes Emily and does exactly that.

Guess who gets the girl?

The most interesting character in this love triangle is Emily. She says little in story, and spends most of her speech-time admitting that she doesn't want to get married, doesn't want to be a wife, and that if she gets pregnant, the bump will get in her way while hunting. Diana tells her she's marrying somebody, and Emily doesn't fight it, doesn't throw a fit, doesn't run away or become an angry lesbian... she simply asks that she be "given to him that most desires me" (the man of love over the man of war), and shows up at tournament on time and waits to see who she gets stuck with for the rest of her life. Was she taught to be so obedient? Was it the natural way of the woman to just accept the life that was already chosen for her? Or, in the end of things, did Emily just not really care?

 The first time she (honestly) meets the two gentlemen "courters" are while they are fistfighting in a grass grove, and never mentions that one of the wrestlers has been in her employment for the last seven years under a different name. No, not creepy or strange at all. Arc dies and Emily is right there at his side, holding his hand and crying at the death of her unconsummated husband. A mourning that takes 7 years... Who is this woman? Maybe it was a ploy to stay virginal as long as possible? After seven years of ashy hair and soggy faces, Theseus pokes his head back into the story and marries Palamon and Emily in a charming conclusion that ends in "happily ever after."