…I now know that the shortest sentence in Dutch containing all twenty-six letters of the alphabet is:
In Zweden vocht groepje quakers bij sexfilm.
(In Sweden a small group of Quakers fought at a sex film.)
My life is immeasurably enriched by that knowledge.
It is striking how many of the Tales are unfinished, either interrupted by other characters or simply not completed by Chaucer – the Shipman’s Tale being the most egregious example, ending in mid-sentence.
I had a colleague who, had he not elected to leave graduate school, would have written his dissertation on the idea of “failure” as portrayed in medieval literature, including Chaucer. He was most fascinated by “The Cook’s Tale,” falling into the critical camp that believes it breaks off deliberately.