Perhaps it is cheating to include the Wife of Bath’s Prologue as a conventional short story, but I have read it so often in class (in Neville Coghill’s translation: Middle English is a little too challenging for 16-year-olds), and it prompts delight and discussion. “What is it that women most desire?” is bound to generate classroom energy, especially if you teach both boys and girls as I do. Another opportunity to try out accents too, especially the old crone who, naturally, transforms into the gorgeous woman of every boy’s dreams. I’m determined to keep on teaching Chaucer, even if he slips off the school curriculum, and this story is a good entry point.
From The Canterbury Tales, c. 1386. Translation by Neville Coghill, Penguin, 1952
A Personal Anthology 