The ninth Annual General Meeting of the Society was chaired by Patron Simon Brett. Reports on the activities of the Society and the financial statement had been circulated beforehand. The committee had indicated their willingness to serve for a further year and were unanimously re-elected. Louise Gibbon, events organiser, gave a brief resume of the varied and exciting events planned for next year.
At the close of the business side of the meeting a warm welcome was extended to our old friend Colin Wilcockson, who this time was talking about some of the women who featured in Chaucer’s writing.
Colin started off by contrasting the women in two of the Canterbury tales. ‘The Knight’s Tale’, a story of courtly love, features Emily who ‘vied with the rose for beauty’. By contrast, Alison in ‘The Miller’s Tale’ is the heroine of a more bawdy story, with three men vying for her affections.
Mention Chaucer and most people will think of ‘The Canterbury Tales’, but Colin told us that up until the 17th Century ‘Troilus and Criseyde’ was his most popular work. He then proceeded to tell us how Chaucer developed the character of Criseyde – a very strong character and ‘a frightening woman’ as Colin said.
Earlier writers had concentrated on the military escapades of the heroes of the siege of Troy and the love story was almost incidental.
When Boccaccio takes up the tale, the love affair between Troilus and Briselda (Criseyde) becomes more prominent. His is a story of the fickleness of women.
Chaucer takes it further and he manipulates the reader so that our attitude to the characters changes as the story progresses. Troilus has no time for love, it is a game to him – until he is pierced by Cupid’s dart.
Colin proceeded to relate the story, enlarging on the character of Pandarus, Criseyde’s uncle, and also explaining how important the use of ‘you’ and ‘thou’ was in early English speech.
Colin’s enthusiasm for his subject communicated itself to his audience and he was warmly thanked by Simon for his interesting talk.