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"He was as fresh as is the month of May".

The above is the 94th line from 'The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue'.

Questions:

  1. Why are 'was' and 'is' in the same line/sentence?

  2. If it is taken as a sentence, what type of a sentence is it? Simple, Complex or Compound?

  3. What figure of speech is applied in the line? Simile, Metaphor (perhaps other than the poetic licence)?

I hope someone may help me to figure them out. Thanks in advance.

mahmud k pukayoor
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    Why do you think that was and is cannot appear in the same sentence? There is no such rule. – tchrist Jul 27 '19 at 15:03
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    Incidentally, Canterbury Tales is not written in English, so questions about its grammar are off-topic here. If this is not the original, but a translation, then it's the translator's dialect you are asking about. – John Lawler Jul 27 '19 at 15:49
  • @JohnLawler, "It was one of the first books to be written in the English language". "The Canterbury Tales is written in the type of English that most ordinary people used in Chaucer's day. Chaucer was one of the first authors (writers) who wrote stories in English". https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales – mahmud k pukayoor Jul 27 '19 at 16:00
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    Alas, that's not true, in many different ways. It was written in one dialect that some people used, of a language now dead, that no modern English speaker could understand without special study. The sentence you cite is clearly not a sentence the Chaucer wrote. It's a sentence in more modern English spelling, and more modern English syntax, than what Chaucer wrote. You should probably also note that Simple Wikipedia is not necessarily a good source of correct information. – John Lawler Jul 27 '19 at 16:06
  • @JohnLawler, yes, you're right when you say that the cited line is in more modern English than many of the other lines. But, isn't it originally written in English language? You talk even about a possible translator! The Encyclopedia Britannica says "The Canterbury Tales, frame story by Geoffrey Chaucer, written in Middle English in 1387–1400". https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Canterbury-Tales – mahmud k pukayoor Jul 27 '19 at 16:29
  • It was originally written in *an* English language. There were a lot of them at the time, since most people never got more than 50 km from where they were born, and they'd all been speaking their own varieties of talk for hundreds of years like that. The language was called "Middle English"; what we speak is "Modern English". What Shakespeare wrote in was "Early Modern English", which is 200 years younger than Chaucer's Middle English. – John Lawler Jul 27 '19 at 16:39
  • But never mind who wrote it. The sentence in modern English is He was as fresh as the month of May (is), meaning the final is can be left off if desired. It's called an Equative construction, and the key to that is that it contains the "as ... as ..." correlative construction. That gives rise to lots of fixed comparisons: as fit as a fiddle, as strong as a horse, as smart as a whip, as dumb as a brick. So if the month of May is fresh, that's how fresh he is; but metaphors occasionally leave something to be desired. I don't really think of whips as smart, for instance. – John Lawler Jul 27 '19 at 16:45
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    @JohnLawler The website is not labelled 'Modern English Language & Usage' so therefore it must be open to Any English Language & Usage. Even to Chaucer's Middle English Language & Usage. (I humbly suggest.) – Nigel J Jul 27 '19 at 19:14
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    Thou shouldst make free so to speak, an thou willst. – John Lawler Jul 27 '19 at 19:34

2 Answers2

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Perhaps this sentence could be viewed as a linking of two thoughts:

He was fresh.

The month of May is fresh.

The was in the first thought describes the state of the subject in the literary passage.

The is in the linked thought is describing the freshness of May (flowers and trees budding; seasons changing to Spring). The present tense is used because May's freshness is eternal.

I'm thinking that it's a simple sentence, with a complement clause of fresh is the month of May.

Since the sentence uses like or as, I would classify this is a simile. And this other answer may confirm.

Community
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rajah9
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  • Thank you for your answer. Still I am inclined to ask you two things: If there are two clauses in a sentence, It should either be a compound sentence or a complex sentence, shouldn't it? Simile is a comparison using 'like' or 'as', right? In this case, He was as fresh as* the month of May is. His freshness is compared to that of May using as. Then, isn't it an example of Simile*? – mahmud k pukayoor Jul 27 '19 at 15:33
  • You are correct: a simile uses like or as. I'm going to change my answer. – rajah9 Jul 27 '19 at 15:36
  • Thank you. Now please consider my doubt regarding the clause count of a simple sentence and a complex or compound sentence. – mahmud k pukayoor Jul 27 '19 at 15:40
  • I like John Lawler's comment in the main question naming this an equative construction. As such, the translator could have left of this "is" and just said, "He was as fresh as the month of May." This is a simple sentence with a subject He, a verb was, and a complement as fresh as the month of May. – rajah9 Jul 27 '19 at 23:57
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    A simile is a kind of metaphor, so it doesn't really make sense to ask whether a sentence is one or the other. This sentence is a metaphor by virtue of the fact that the month of May is not fresh in the same sense as he was, and a simile by virtue of the fact that the structure as... as is used. –  Jul 28 '19 at 07:55
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In comments many, John Lawler wrote:

Incidentally, Canterbury Tales is not written in English, so questions about its grammar are off-topic here. If this is not the original, but a translation, then it's the translator's dialect you are asking about.

Alas, that's not true, in many different ways. It was written in one dialect that some people used, of a language now dead, that no modern English speaker could understand without special study. The sentence you cite is clearly not a sentence the Chaucer wrote. It's a sentence in more modern English spelling, and more modern English syntax, than what Chaucer wrote. You should probably also note that Simple Wikipedia is not necessarily a good source of correct information.

It was originally written in an English language. There were a lot of them at the time, since most people never got more than 50 km from where they were born, and they'd all been speaking their own varieties of talk for hundreds of years like that. The language was called "Middle English"; what we speak is "Modern English". What Shakespeare wrote in was "Early Modern English", which is 200 years younger than Chaucer's Middle English.

But never mind who wrote it. The sentence in modern English is He was as fresh as the month of May (is), meaning the final is can be left off if desired. It's called an Equative construction, and the key to that is that it contains the "as ... as ..." correlative construction. That gives rise to lots of fixed comparisons: as fit as a fiddle, as strong as a horse, as smart as a whip, as dumb as a brick. So if the month of May is fresh, that's how fresh he is; but metaphors occasionally leave something to be desired. I don't really think of whips as smart, for instance.

Thou shouldst make free so to speak, an thou willst.

tchrist
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