By Geoffrey Chaucer, illustrated by Greg Irons (Bellerophon Books)
ISBN: 0-88388-023-7
I’m just showing off now, but this lost treasure, published in conjunction with a colouring book (The Chaucer Coloring Book, which collected the original woodcut illustrations from Caxton’s 1484 edition of The Canterbury Tales) is a terrific and logical blending of High Art and Our Art and one so very worthy of being republished.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as well as being a venerable and lauded landmark of English literature, was a ribald, earthy, popular classic, full of humanity’s every foible and peccadillo. It was rude, crude, action packed, and even had talking animals. Thematically, how much closer can you get to the general opinion and popular conception of the comic book?
Marry that with the art of the irreverent, subversive art and attitude of the San Francisco underground movement of the early 1970’s and you have a brilliant piece of pop-art history that actually has lasting social relevance and educational value.
The text of the Wife of Bath is typeset and in the original continental accentual-syllabic metre which Chaucer used to champion the London-dialect dominance of Middle English. So this will make a lot more sense if read aloud phonetically (the book not my review). Or you could simply look at the stonkingly brilliant and funny, ribald pictures drawn by the astounding Greg Irons.
Some college or publishing house simply has to get this book back into print, ASAP!
Artwork © 1973 Greg Irons. All Rights Reserved.