No excuses can hide the criminal actions of a Nazi fellow-traveller in this admirably objective documentary, suggests MARTIN HALL
Good old-fashioned filth
GORDON PARSONS recommends an ideal introduction to the writer who was first to give the English a literary language
Pier Paolo Pasolini as Chaucer in his film of The Canterbury Tales
PAUL DONOVAN relishes a fascinating exploration of the leading lights of the Labour right in the 1970s
BEN LUNN alerts us to the creeping return of philanthropy and private patronage, and suggests alternative paths to explore
A novel by Argentinian Jorge Consiglio, a personal dictionary by Uruguayan Ida Vitale, and poetry by Mexican Homero Aridjis
MIK SABIERS savours the first headline solo show of the stalwart of Brighton’s indie-punk outfit Blood Red Shoes
New releases reviewed by IAN SINCLAIR
STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
Geoffrey Chaucer: Unveiling the Merry Bard
Mary Flannery, Reaktion Books, £16.99
GIVEN that even with the enormous modern research into Shakespeare’s life there is still a paucity of detailed knowledge, Mary Flannery is courageous in taking on a biography of the other icon of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer, of whose personal life even less is known.
She does have the advantage, however, that medieval records provide revealing evidence of the latter whose active public life as civil servant, diplomat and MP was spent on the fringes of administrative and political power during the tumultuous later years of the 14th century.
When she comes to what kind of man Chaucer was, her descriptions are necessarily very largely based on suppositions. Her account is prefaced regularly with phrases such as ”it is unclear,” “it may have been,” and “it seems problematic.” Even a description of the construction of a new Custom House including a latrine which, it is “conjectured” Chaucer, customs comptroller (sic) for the Port of London, may have used.
More from this author
GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin
GORDON PARSONS meditates on the appetite of contemporary audiences for the obscene cruelty of Shakespeare’s Roman nightmare
GORDON PARSONS welcomes a graphic biography of George Sand, the most popular French novelist in 19th-century Britain
GORDON PARSONS relishes a fast moving production of Sheridan’s comic masterpiece
