Jonty Claypole

I certainly do.

I remember reading this as a student.

It's about the length of the novel.

And I remember quite early on thinking, oh, this is a novel.

It happens to rhyme, but it's a novel.

And it is an absolutely brilliant psychological study of the legend of Troilus and Cressida in the Trojan War and the portrayal of Cressida of Troilus.

And the tale's been told many times.

It's normally written up as Cressida is a floozy, an incompetent woman.

And Chaucer really goes to town on the deep psychology of these characters, of looking at their relationship, looking at why Crusade betrays Troilus.

It's a total masterpiece.

And it actually ends.

So it's a complete work of art on, like, the Canterbury Tales.

And to reflect on a moment, why does this happen?

Why does this happen in the second half of the 14th century?

The English, modern English, as we almost know it, emerges that we can suddenly read poetry written in England and we can read it as speakers of modern English and we can just about follow what's going on.

Now, I think on one hand, it's just a coming of age for the language.

It's been a couple of centuries after the Norman conquest.

There's been a sort of bedding down and the language has been bubbling away and starting to emerge.

So I guess on one hand, it's just an evolutionary change.

But it's rapidly accelerated at this moment, I think, for a number of reasons.