Walter Clyde Curry

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote (although he did not finish) a Treatise on the Astrolabe. He gave an interesting chemical demonstration (which has been shown to work) in The Canon's Yeoman's Tale. He discusses physics -- some of it valid, some of it wrong but the best that could be known at the time -- in the House of Fame. In other words, Chaucer was, by the standards of the fourteenth century, quite knowledgeable about science. There is broad scope for a book about science in Chaucer.

This ain't it.

This is, instead, a meticulously argued, thoroughly dull, profoundly absurd discussion of Chaucer and astrology.

Look, I know that people in the Middle Ages believed in astrology. Many people today still believe that evolution and climate change are hoaxes, and apparently all politicians, regardless of party, sign a contract to refuse to accept that the universe is governed by the laws of thermodynamics. But not everyone is fooled by this, and no matter what people believe, eppur si muove.

I simply cannot believe that the Canterbury Tales (which is all this book really covers, except for brief side glances at Troilus and Criseyde and Anelida and Arcite at the end) was constructed the way this book describes. Chaucer was creating characters, not animated horoscopes. If all it took to make a great piece of literature was an in-depth knowledge of astrology, there would be a lot more great literature in the world.

To be fair, author Walter Clyde Curry acknowledges Chaucer's use of Boethius as a philosopher. But I think he ignores Boethius as encyclopedist.

Obviously I am operating on an assumption here: I believe that astrology is garbage. I also believe that Chaucer was a great writer. Therefore I don't want the two to mix. But I simply don't believe Curry's detailed special pleading really does anything to prove the connection is as strong as the author claims. And, certainly, there is no science in this book. Not modern science -- and not medieval science, either. Curry -- who never covers the Treatise, the House of Fame, or the Canon's Yeoman's Tale -- evidently left those out because they were actually about science.… (more)