Is Chaucer your author?
Then you will have read (or ought to have read) "The Parlement of
Fowls," the "Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales, "The Knight's
Tale," "The Man of Law's Tale," "The Nun Priest's Tale," "The
Doctor's Tale," "The Pardoner's Tale" with its Prologue, "The
Friar's Tale." You were not dissuaded from reading "Troilus;" you
were not forbidden to read all the Canterbury Tales, even the
naughtiest; but the works that I have mentioned have been
'prescribed' for you. So, of Shakespeare, we do not discourage
you (at all events, intentionally) from reading "Macbeth,"
"Othello," "As You Like It," "The Tempest," any play you wish. In
other years we 'set' each of these in its turn. But for this Year
of Grace we insist upon "King John," "The Merchant of Venice,"
"King Henry IV, Part I," "Much Ado about Nothing," "Hamlet,"
"King Lear," 'certain specified works'--and so on, with other
courses of study. Why is this done? Be fair to us, Gentlemen. We
do it not only to accommodate the burden to your backs, to avoid
overtaxing one-and-a-half or two years of study; not merely to
guide you that you do not dissipate your reading, that you shall
--with us, at any rate--know where you are.
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