tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post6866621270189319707..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Britoun Books, Written with Evaungiles, AgainCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-91829772639313879082009-03-22T20:18:00.000-04:002009-03-22T20:18:00.000-04:00Very glad to see this topic continued on ITM. I ju...Very glad to see this topic continued on ITM. I just wanted to address the BBC adaptation series you mentioned in the beginning of this posting: I often bring in clips of these into my classes and I find the MLT highly thought-provoking and easily the most compelling adaptation in that series. We recently discussed the MLT adaptation in my Chaucer class; I like bringing it in simply b/c I find its opening scene is so gripping - it re-stages the moment when Constance/Custance washes ashore on the coast of Britain, and the adaptation then goes on to transmute many of the tale's central issues in creative ways. Not only does it play up the coexistence of systems of divine justice and human forms of legal procedure (something I only dimly perceived in the MLT itself prior to viewing this adaptation) but this version also finds creative ways to transport Chaucerian concerns to modern multicultural Britain (among other things, the "Sowdanesse" figure is an Iranian immigrant who resists the impending romance between her son Alan and the refugee Constance). <BR/><BR/>When we discussed this version of the MLT I was surprised that some students found the modernized version *less* nuanced than the original, and that it actually works very hard to tidy up many of the messy notions of cultural difference that they already perceive within Chaucer's original text. This is just to say I very much appreciate how this adaptation compels the viewer to entertain (and indeed interrogate) the affinities between modern multicultural Britain and Chaucer's own multicultural Britain - and what our investments are in acknowledging cultural difference in the first place. I would like to think that Chaucer's cosmopolitan, Continental leanings allow him to imagine cultural difference in a more nuanced, flexible manner, esp. where the Mediterranean context is concerned - but I do acknowledge that even Chaucer is not without "blindspots" (or even deliberate omissions) concerning Britain's own internal diversity.Jonathan Hsyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13214201468052661183noreply@blogger.com