The Fear Of Faith [2]

15. Bethan

'This is Medieval English and you are English Literature students and no one can answer that question for me,' Professor Fawkes sighed.

I rolled my eyes and let out a sigh before raising my head. 'Geoffrey Chaucer,' I mumbled, quickly.

The class all responded with chatter and nods, cursing themselves when they heard my answer and I frowned to myself, knowing they were faking it.

'Thank you, Miss Jones,' he said, shaking his head. 'The Canterbury Tales; I'm sure we can all say we've heard of that one, yes?'

The class all mumbled in unison as they nodded and he took a deep breath and rolled his eyes as he continued.

'So, tell me about one of the tales, lets see...Miss Johnson, over there.' He pointed over to a girl named Samantha.

'The Knight's Tale,' she replied. 'The knight is the first story to be told about two men falling in love with the same woman.'

'Indeed,' Fawkes said. 'So, let's discuss why Chaucer is so important and influential to English language and literature then? Miss Jones?'

My eyelids dropped apathetically as he called my name and I took a breath and straightened up.

'Well, probably the fact that he chose to write the tales in English.' I gave the most obvious answer with a shrug.

'Elaborate, please,' Fawkes said, with an encouraging smile.

I dared to give an unamused sigh and continued. 'Well, it was the fourteenth century and Latin and French were seen as more...sophisticated than English. English may have well been the more wider spoken language but in terms of written text, not so much. Chaucer was simply proving that literature could be just as beautiful in English than in the "better" or more preferred languages.'

'Actually...' A voice came from the back of the room that made the hair on my neck stand up. 'The English literary tradition had already began to emerge centuries before that as several scholars have appeared to point out so, I don't think that's a reason to call him influential. It's not accurate to say he started this...trend.'

I took a deep breath in and out as Brodie deliberately counter-argued against me and I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to start up a debate with him when I actually was supposed to be apologising to him.

'Interesting!' Fawkes cried with a grin. 'What do you make of Mr West's answer, Miss Jones?'

'Fair point,' I said, wanting to leave it at that but realising what he was doing. Brodie was trying to piss me off and undermine me in front of Professor Fawkes. 'But influential is exactly what Chaucer was. His literature was brilliant but it grew more difficult to read as centuries passed by and sparked fears that other works of literature would go on to have the same fate and because of this, it contributed to the early modern efforts of linguistic change. The important point being, he unknowingly contributed to the creation of English language dictionaries.'

I raised my hands in the air as if the answer were obvious and Fawkes grinned in amusement before turning back to Brodie.

'A very good point,' he chuckled. 'Don't you agree, Mr West?'

'He wasn't even a professional writer!' Brodie argued. 'Plus, the dude was a rapist!'

'What the hell?' I spun around in my chair to glare at Brodie, automatically noticing a faint bruise under his eye. 'That's completely ridiculous and irrelevant.'