Join our regular hosts Alice, and Shannen for a delicious, aromatic conversation on this unfinished bawdy tale, its additions and adaptations with Jo King (PhD candidate, UC Santa Barbara)! We got everybody’s favorite Cook, Roger of Ware, and the shortest Canterbury Tale! Despite that, it has a varied manuscript and adaptation history which makes this shortest episode potentially our longest so far — so much we had to cut it into two episodes!

Show notes, sources, and further reading:

Dubin, Nathaniel E., trans. “The Knight Who Made Cunts Talk” from The Fabliaux : A New Verse Translation. First edition. Liveright Publishing Corporation, A Division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.

Edwards, A. S. G. “Chaucer’s Cook’s Tale, 4422.” Notes and Queries (Oxford) 64, no. 2 (2017): 220–21.

Mannyng, Robert, Idelle Sullens, and William. Handlyng Synne. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1983.

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life, including The Canterbury Tales (1971)

Pecan, David. “[Un]Licensed Riot: Prodigality, Hypocrisy, and Guild Discourse in Chaucer’s Cook’s Tale.” Nalans 10, no. 20 (2022): 281–92.

Wang, Denise Ming-yueh. “Old Pies, Stray Flies, and Possibly Poisonous Parsley in the Cook’s Prologue and Tale.” Ex-Position (Taipei) 45, no. 45 (2021): 27–45.