[Bards] Prose Tales

Jay Rudin rudin at ev1.net
Wed May 2 06:37:10 PDT 2007


Kenneth wrote:

> Here is my bottom line.  Was there prose in period?  Of course!!  The 
> prose
> was written.  Did people talk in prose-like language?  Of course.  Millers
> and reeves, and soldiers, and every-day people spoke to each other in
> every-day language.  They even did so when relating jokes, and stories 
> about
> their cows, and wives, neighbors, etc.  These scenarios I do NOT liken to
> our bardic circles.  This is where you may disagree.

Yes, this is indeed where I disagree.  A bardic circle is specifically the 
place where we are not split into bards and audience, but are a group of 
friends entertaining each other.  Note everybody performs, but anyone is 
free to do so; we don't demand that you show your mambership in Local #666 
of the Bards, Jongleurs and Goliards Union before you can join in.

I agree with you that the question of formal performance by a professional 
entertainer in prose is not yet documented before Elizabethan times, and not 
even as an entire piece then (there are prose sections in Shakespeare's 
plays), but the average bardic circle is similar to the Decameron or the 
Canterbury Tales.

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin 




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