Brothers,
We've discussed a lot with regard to The Canterbury Tales in terms of irony, mock-epic, rhyme scheme (i.e. heroic couplet), maxim, exemplum, the archetypal elements of a moral tale.
That said, let's throw the class activity on Aesop Rock's "No Regrets" aside for now and flex, instead, our creative muscles.
Create an at least 50-100 line tale about a specific person, event, or thing that involves the following: a "couplet" rhyme scheme; a moral; and all four of the archetypal elements that we've discussed in class and read about in the text (cf. 140).
Please incorporate at least ten (10) vocabulary words from pages 91, 118, and 140 into your tale.
If you are having trouble trying to be creative, consider Aesop Rock's own tale of Lucy in "No Regrets" as a modern-day spin-off of a Canterbury tale. Perhaps his work and of course that of Chaucer will inspire you to create!
This assignment is due by class-time on Tuesday, Nov. 13. You have plenty of time to begin writing and to start asking questions.
Otherwise, please read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for class on Monday (Nov. 5).
BRobPeachFSC
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Jordan Page
Bro. Peach
Section 5
Nov. 13, 2007
The Three Brother’s Tale
There once was a man, fully garnished
With clothes of bright gold, not at all tarnished.
This man’s name was Greg
And nobody knew he had a peg leg.
He needed an apothecary, every now and again
To help keep him looking normal, so he wouldn’t lose any friends
His brother, the timorous Phillip, couldn’t stop prating
For all he could do was chit-chat-chatting.
Their third bro, Erik, was a sanguine man.
He was the one that made this master plan.
These brothers, they knew
Of all they could do
To become filthy rich
And they would hide the money in a ditch.
So here is the story of this trio’s plan,
To become rich in capital and be all that they can.
It starts with Erik, the youngest one, yes.
But this thing he was thinking is better than the rest.
He was sitting in front of the computer
Talking with his tutor
When he got a crazy email from a un commissioned sender
That said all you have to do is get in a crazy fender bender
To “get your cash quick from the government, Son”
And Erik quickly thought “Hey this could be fun.”
So he rounded up his brothers as fast as he could
And told them of this thing that they would
Do to get all the money in the world
He found Greg in his bedroom with his hair freshly curled.
“Man what you are you doing with that insane hairdo?”
“Dude this isn’t a hairdo, and why don’t you back off too!”
Anyway these three guys sat down on the couch
When Erik, the brains, decided to shout,
“Fellas I got it, we’re going to get rich quick!
All we have to do it be real slick?
“What are you saying?” said Phillip, the chatterer
“Yeah man,” said the stringent Greg, “what is the matter?”
“I was sitting at my computer today,
When I got an email and this is what it say.
It said something about getting rich fast.
And to do this my bros we have to get in a crash.”
The boys looked around when one finally said
“Come on Erik, I just got out of bed.
You can’t be really be thinking about this
We could go to jail in a couple minutes.”
Greg said, “Yeah Erik, we aren’t doing following through
On this stupid idea thought up by not you.
We should all just get jobs and work real hard
Let’s just stay here now and play a game of cards.”
Erik was bummed but he knew it wasn’t right
What he was trying to do wasn’t in God’s light.
So the brothers got jobs at Target, Wal-Mart and J-C-Penny
And the brothers never thought of that plan that could bring them plenty
Of money so that they never had to work
Another day with a smirk.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, reader, I swear
I knew you thought a crazy story you would hear.
And without anymore tarry
I’m done with this story, I know, me leaving is scary.
So in my story there is no getting rich quick
And obviously no burying money in a ditch.
So as you’ve figured out, my prologue was cant
All that it did was let me go on a rant.
Now I’m done with typing and thinking in my head,
I think that I’m ready to go to bed.
Charles Destro
Bro. Peach
Section 5
Nov. 13, 2007
Zack was 13 and his whole story was strife
On the outside he seems to be on full of life
The pressure on him was rough
But on the inside he wished he could be more tough
He is like a machine to all
Until he hit’s the wall
Non stop he works and works
Finally he breaks and they don’t understand. Jerks.
Pain. He asks “should I go on more?”
You have no chance, you lost it all, your poor.
Pain “no, just quit, your nothing, just like the rest”
That is it, he’s done, he gives up on his quest.
2 years later, high school starts they want the robot back
The derision was too much for poor zack.
Past words echo in his head; pain, poor, quit.
Hope still lingers, someone still believes in the old spit
The hope is enough, zack goes back to his sport.
No one knows he’s coming back to the water fort.
At age 15 he hides his comeback training
He trains so hard, no doubt he is back, no feigning.
For another year negative rumors strewn
Mixed emotions, happy to silence the prating soon
He makes sure they don’t know
Fearful and timorous, afraid to be slow
His opponents mock him in a sanguine manner
Hoping he’s gonna smash the little planner.
He says nothing just keeps a stringent face.
Hoping that soon, like before, he will set the pace.
He’s 16 now, ready to crush.
Adrenaline running through him in a rush.
Thanks to that little hope, he’s ready to bring his wrath
Waiting for 3 years to leave those fools back in his path
He has his chance now
Without prevarication he says “I came back to smash thou”
“What is he doing here?” they say
Laughs, Chuckles “you ain’t nothing but washed up old prey”
The peril he is exposed to doesn’t worry him
He feels ready like years ago, like a pro, ready swim.
starting now, he grips the familiar steel
wash begins to destroy them now, he knows the pain they must feel.
He proved the one who had hope right
Finally, he is the champion; his opponents, interred by the fight.
He feels warm now, not because of the race, or the pride of their defeat
He wondered why he wasn’t happy when he got his revenge so sweet.
Zack learned, don’t do it to prove someone wrong, do it to prove yourself right.
He goes home happy, proud, the journey is at its height
He’s 24 now, an Olympian, and ever more wise
He knows the secret to winning that prize.
Believe in yourself and not what others say.
And you will become more than some washed up old prey.
Shane Conway
Bro.Peach
Section 5
Nov. 13, 2007
Big Choices
When I was little I used to go to Central games and loved it.
But when I moved to Monroeville I fell in love with another team and I thought they were the s***.
I never thought I would go to Central and I was sanguine.
The day got closer when I had to make a choice and that was fine.
My parents always told me I had to go and take the test down at Central Catholic High School.
They said this because my dad went here and that was their only request. So I said that’s cool.
At first I didn’t want to leave my home town school of Gateway. All my friends went here how I could leave all my friends.
I didn’t think this but now I believe I started a trend.
But I didn’t even really want to go, but my mom always said this “if you don’t like it you can always come back”. I figured she is right it is a common maxim.
I decided to make my decision off the 2004 WPIAL championship football game down at Heinz Field.
I was cheering for Gateway because that’s the school I wanted to go to.
But when Central won I thought there was something about that student section and the team itself and the color blue.
At the game my dad and my brother sat on the Central side and my mom and I sat on the Gateway side.
I told my parents on how I was going to make my decision. When Gateway lost I knew I had to abide.
My dad and my brother gave me so much crap for sitting on the losing side. But they finally gave me an absolution.
From that game there was the final solution. (To come to Central)
So hear I am sitting in Central Catholic and just thinking what my life would have been like if I went to Gateway.
So this is all I have to say.
I know Bro. Peach told us to make it 50-100 lines but I decided to split mine into 2.
This next topic many people found out this week that I am moving across the ocean blue.
I know most people have questions about it and must think this is scary
Don’t worry a good friend of mine is an apothecary.
When my dad told me that we were moving to New Castle, England I almost hit the floor.
My dad said every one he told in my family turned pallor.
I did have a choice if I wanted to go or not and I thought it made no sense but the final choice was his.
I really didn’t want to go but he told me all the good things that came with it and it finally does.
All the things it came with it almost sound as if it was garnished.
With moving there my really only concern and still is will my friendships become tarnished.
I know I mentioned this earlier in the story
But my grandma’s hair turned hoary.
I will probably moving sometime in late January or early February.
I have cousins over there like my Aunt Mary.
Brother you are probably confused as you read this but it’s true
I hope that you won’t feel blue.
The school said that I will be able to come back and gave me full commission
I really hate to leave this school and all this tradition.
I’m sorry if this sound just like about of prating
A.k.a chatting.
This paper sometimes feels like its tarring
But I had to get these 10 vocabulary words in and with these final lines sparring
I would ask you now that I would rather not read this if we have a Ceoffe House Production
Do to its material and such and I hope it won’t cause a reduction
Of my grade.
This is my final line and it don’t have to rhyme like RJ Vento.
Bro. Rob Peach, FSC
Bro. Rob Peach, FSC
ENG 141.Sections 4 and 5
13.XI.2007
Canterbury Tales Spin-Off
“In Faith”
A young man of a yellow pallor, whose beliefs are shaken
Falls as from a tower with spirit forsaken.
He knows not what is to come of this fall
Only that the journey downward seems endless and all
Full of restless wandering as a lamb without shepherd.
He is torn between two worlds: the real and the absurd;
The purple sky and the pale soil of the desert ground;
The material worth of a world in white sound
And the spirit earth unseen, unheard, yet felt.
This figure in anguish cries from painful karma dealt
By years of questions long forgotten or never asked
Until the dark horizon of his mind reveals a hermit unmasked.
In the light of day this figure steps forth
From black mountains to the East, the West, and North.
He stands firmly balanced on marble before the timorous young man
With the authority that only a well-garnished pope could demand.
This hoary pontificator is oddly ageless it seems
With hair gray and curled and a sanguine face that beams
A shimmering honey brown beneath a swarm of bees
That suggest industry, order, and purities.
His face looks stern and his countenance stringent,
But he seeks only to give solace to those in bereavement.
He wishes not to judge or deride the helpless, heathen youth
But simply to provide sound direction forsooth.
One hand points skyward in certainty
And the other points earthward earnestly.
Without cant he avouches two sets of values—
Those of spiritual and those of material hues—
Having only this to say solicitously:
“I am sinless and all sin derives from me.”
He falters not and by example commissions
The wishful young man to grasp his ambitions
With some newfound hope to build a firm foundation
On which to deal with life without prevarication.
But with a system of belief called faith,
Not an organized rite, but a spirituality unsafe,
Stripped of all dogma in a land that burns fire,
Tempting always this youth into traps of desire
From which he was absolved by a spirit-man unnamed,
Who, with two fingers and thumb stretched, tamed
In the sign of the cross the once-blind fool,
Whose wisdom grows with experience as his tool
For leaning not to obey but to act
On behalf of a mind that speaks with tact
The words divine of spirit, man, and myth
Cutting short, as ominous death with his scythe,
Urges that burn all sight of a life
That exits in undulating waves of strife,
Which, when confronted as an adversary in war,
Afford him the test of manhood avoided before.
The youth stares he, who reaps grim, in the face
In a battle of wits, of style, and of grace.
This the youth wins, prizing the ankh as his pendant—
A life victorious in an adolescence well spent
In falling into, listening for, and acting upon
The sage voice of a prophet once here, now gone,
Yet whose spirit survives in the monument fountain of the youth,
Whose own story of sin redeemed is yours is mine I tell you again in sooth.
It is a tale of begetting, a tale of birth,
Told in three cards tarot, resulting in mirth
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