“Whan That Aprill...” Hear Chaucer's Description of Spring in “The Canterbury Tales” (Audio)

David Wallace, Judith Rodin Professor of English, reads and comments on the prologue.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

By Susan Ahlborn

In April, do your thoughts turn to pilgrimages? Listen to David Wallace, Judith Rodin Professor of English, read and comment on the prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye

(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende

Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

There's more of Wallace reading Chaucer on PennSound - click here.