Uh-Oh, Intelligent Humor.

Well, I do try. Today's topic is allegorical writings of the early Renaissance. No, wait! Don't leave! I promise, it'll be interesting. For my Survey of British Literature class, I recently read Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' (well, the Prologue and the Miller's, Reeve's and Wife of Bath's Tale), 'The Second Shepherd's Play,' 'Everyman,' and the first four Cantos of Spenser's 'The Faerie Queene.' Despite my brain melting into a puddle of goo with reading so much Middle English all at once (a minor problem, I assure you), I really do enjoy these stories. Most of them are quite funny, and the one that isn't meant to be comedic is inadvertently humorous.

For instance, 'The Miller's Tale' features a man who wants to sleep with a married woman. She fears her jealous husband's wrath and tells him she won't sleep with him unless he has a foolproof plan so that her husband won't find out. (This is common in popular literature of the century - lots of sex and ribald humor. Ever listened to any Madrigal music? They're all about sex. I mean, 'I'd Enter Your Garden?' Please.)

The foolproof plan ends up being that he convinces her husband that God is sending a second flood. While her husbands sits upstairs in a bathtub waiting for the flood, the main character makes time with his wife.

Let me just say, hearing our seventy-something year old professor (he encourages us to call him 'Stuart') talk and laugh about sex at the front of our small classroom is a rare joy in my life. He has that old person voice, the kind that's a bit creaky and wavers and doesn't stay on the same pitch, you know? He also uses a million adjectives. At least two adjectives for every noun.

"Chaucer's...Chaucer's 'Prologue' introduces us to more than just the...the characters, right? Erm, ahem, er, the Knight is a sort of an...upstanding, chivalrous fellow. He's a good, righteous kind of man. As opposed to, say, the Miller, who is described as a lecherous, greedy, obese man with a drinking problem."

(-insert wheezy old man laugh-)

"When you read the, the, the Miller's Tale, you'll see...well, it's a...a very bawdy, sexual tale. It's, it's, uh, well, it's like those terrible, flowery romance books that your mother reads." (-pause-) "Well, at least, my mother read them."

Despite his monotonous put-you-to-sleep voice and the fact that his old-man-repeat-words-syndrome (a common disease amongst the elderly, amiright?) means every sentence takes twice as long to say, I love that class. Stuart is really a wildcard, I must say.

The Second Shepherd's Play, though, amused me even more greatly than the Miller's Tale. When reading the Middle English, I tend to read it three or four times to get the meaning straight, and then often if it's too complex I'll write out a rough modern 'translation' in the margin for later reference. For instance. This passage, from The Second Shepherd's Play:

DAW: Such servants as I,
That sweats and swinks,
Eats our bread full dry,
And that me forthinks.
We are oft wet and weary
WHen master-men winks,
Yet comes full lately
Bother dinners and drinks.
But nately
Both our dame and our sire
When we have run in the mire
They can nip at our hire
And pay us full lately.

I read this passage a few times, got the meaning, and then translated quite professionally into the margin: "Daw bitches about how they don't pay him enough."

I think I may have a future in this.

Another example: The first six pages I have translated to:

Coll: -bitches about being cold and overtaxed-
Gib: -bitches about the cold and his unhappy marriage and nagging wife-
Daw: -bitches about the weather and makes melodramatic connections to Noah's flood-

See, I'm a very efficient reader. Anyway, the story of the Second Shepherd's Play is that a group of shepherds are chilling in the hills with their sheep and lamenting about hard economic times. This guy they know, named Mak, comes to talk to them. They all rush to gather their belongings so that he won't steal them, so we know what sort of man Mak is. Anyway, Mak assures them that he's not up to anything, takes a moment to bitch about his wife for a bit ("She drinks well, too...and every year that comes to man / She brings forth a bairn - and some years two."), and they all sing and then go to sleep.

Once everyone is asleep, Mak casts a spell over them to keep them asleep (See, see the discord between the Pagan bits like this in a mainly Christian piece? It ends with them visiting baby Jesus...but Mak casts a spell. EEENTERESTING.) and runs off to steal a sheep. He snatches a ram (apparently their only ram) and brings it back to his house.

There he and his wife, Gill, have a little argument that reminds me of Miracle Max and his wife in 'Princess Bride.' ("Back, witch!" "I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!") and they decide to swaddle the ram and put it in the cradle, so that when the shepherds came to blame Mak for the theft, they wouldn't find any suspiciously familiar looking rams hanging around.

So Mak goes back to the shepherds, removes the spell, and pretends to sleep. They all wake up, bitch a bit more about the weather, and then Mak heads on home to his wife. When he's gone, the shepherds count their sheep, and - lo! Their ram is missing! Whodunit? They all immediately assume Mak, and go stomping to his house to punch him in the jeans (Or something.)

Mak answers the door by asking them to be quiet, as his wife has a headache and is very tired from giving birth the previous night. Gill compliments this story by bitching loudly about how their footsteps 'go through her head.' After a bunch of back-and-forth against a backdrop of Gill moaning about how uncomfortable she is, the shepherds apologize for suspecting him and leave.

Wow! For once, the cheater /is/ going to prosper! Oh, wait - nope. Feeling bad for having been so rude to Mak and Gill, the shepherds decide to go back and give the new baby a sixpence as a gift. Mak and Gill immediately protest. "Nay, do way! He sleeps!" "When he wakens he weeps. I pray you go hence." (Translation: GTFO.)

The Shepherds insist they only want to give him a kiss on the head, to give him their blessing. They raise the cover and...my, grandma. What a long nose you have! Mak and Gill scramble to explain. Mak swears up and down that he's the father and Gill is the mother. Gill describes the child as a "pretty child", a "darling, by God". They grow more desperate. Mak says that the child's nose is broken, and that's why it looks like a sheep (...what?) and Gill says that the Faerie's took him and he's a changeling.

Wow. Kind of stretching it, aren't we?

Of course, the shepherds see right through him, but they spare his life, and because of their kindness, they get to go visit baby Jesus. That's probably actually the most important part of the play (that second half that I just summarized in one sentence), but that part bores me.

Sparknotes tells me that if anyone can't see the meaningful connection between the swaddled ram and the newborn baby Jesus, they must be an idiot. That came as news to me, as I came out of this story wondering at how much they sing (In a margin: "It's like a musical!!") and wondering whether or not 'Gill' should be pronounced 'Jill.'

...and I'm an English major. Yikes.

Okay, I'm gonna wrap this up, since I'm always a bit more long-winded than I mean to be, and this isn't so much laugh-out-loud funny as it is...well, a bit too educational. But I had the stories on my mind. Last thing: Everyman.

Everyman is one of the most famous 'Morality Plays' that were performed in the early Renaissance at festivals and such. These plays, while having small amounts of comedy to keep the audience interested, were basically meant to convey the ever-popular idea of "LISTEN TO GOD OR HE'LL SMITE YOU." Really what everyone wants to hear when they're chilling at a city-wide celebration, drinking wine and flirting with girls in corsets.

Anyway. Let me define the word 'allegory' to make this a bit more clear. An allegory is where a writer takes an idea - like an emotion, a virtue, etc. - and personifies it. For instance, the Grim Reaper is the idea of death. George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' is allegorical. Dante's 'Inferno' is allegorical. Hell, Peter S. Beagle's 'The Last Unicorn' is allegorical.

Allegories confuse people sometimes. In fact, until I read 'Everyman', they confused me, too. If you don't understand what an allegory is, read even just a portion of 'Everyman' and it'll all make sense. Everyman is what I can only describe as the least. subtle. allegory. EVER. The main character, Everyman (Get it? Get it? Every...man! Everyone!) has a best friend named 'Fellowship.' Not kidding. His relations are named 'Kindred' and 'Cousin.'

The story goes that God is annoyed that men aren't paying enough attention to him (well, that sounds much more petty when I put it that way) and demands that Death (HEY WONDER WHAT THAT CHARACTER REPRESENTS 8D) go fetch Everyman and bring him for his final reckoning. Apparently the solution, when someone misbehaves, is to send your minions to fetch him, teach him his lesson, and then...kill him. Wow. Fat lot of good it does teaching him a lesson that only mattered on Earth. Once you're in heaven or hell, doesn't it really just...not matter what you do?

Anyway, Death is like "Hey, Everyman! Tomorrow you have to go see God! And you can never come back!" and Everyman's like "Shit! D: Wait! No! I need to get my affairs in order. Just give me...um, twelve years." And Death is like "Hellno. You are going tomorrow. You can bring a friend." And then he disappears. So Everyman is like "I love my friends and family, so I'm going to try and get them killed, too." Unfortunately for him, his family and friends get a lot less loyal when they find out what he has planned for them. Fellowship, Kindred and Cousin all abandon him. Aww, sadface. Everyman gets all emo. Then, he has a great idea! He'll call his friend Goods! (Yes. Yes, that is his name.) 'Goods' is a SOOPAR CLEVAHR ALLEGORICAL REPRESENTATION of money/wealth/riches. How subtle. Of course, when Everyman asks Goods to come with him to his reckoning, Goods pretty much laughs in his face. Well, you know what they say...you can't take it with you.

Everyman decides it would be a good idea to call on his other friend, Good Deeds. Unfortunately, he hasn't been a very good friend to Good Deeds. In fact, Good Deeds appears to be squished under a rock at the moment, so weak that she is unable to move. Despite this terrible treatment (See, not stop complaining that your friends never give you gas money. At least they don't squish you under giant allegorical rocks.) Good Deeds wants to help Everyman. But alas, she is too weak! Good Deeds calls upon her sister, Knowledge, to help Everyman. Then he grabs some more friends - Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and of course, his Five-Wits ("You must have them ready at all hours."). He also goes to see this guy named 'Confession' and Confession gives him a gift - it's a Penance! I'm trying to picture Penance in a gift bag. After he confesses, Good Deeds miraculously recovers. The whole motley crew skips and sings and follows the yellow brick road to go see God.

To go to his reckoning, Everyman has to jump into a grave. (O, subtlety!) Suddenly, everyone chickens out. Beauty, Strength and Five-Wits hi-tail it out of there. Discretion says something about not being able to stick around without Strength and follows suit. Knowledge sticks around, but only because she wants to watch (that sick, sick creature.)

Everyman and Good Deeds are the only remaining people. They say some shit in Latin and descend into the grave.

Can anyone guess what the moral is? Is it that...my goodness...God doesn't care if you're pretty? :0 WHAT? God doesn't love Brad Pitt more? Is it that all that matters on the day of reckoning are the Good Deeds you've done?

Okay, I'm running low on heavy sarcasm here. Basically, you'd have to be dumb as a ROCK to not get the idea here, but the play is STILL capped on either side by the Messenger and the Doctor explaining the moral of the story. I would be insulted to be an audience-member of this play.

I would probably throw rotten fruit.

Well, class, that completes your unwanted British Lit lecture for the day. I hope you found it amusing, or that it at least distracted you from homework long enough to be worth it. Also, if you're taking Survey of British Lit with good old Stuart next semester or something, now you're covered on at least three pieces of literature.

GINNY > SPARKNOTES