Judge — December 31, 1927 — page 6: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Judge" Magazine Cartoon Analysis This cartoon illustrates a satirical scene titled "Biographical Reminiscences of Famous Collegians," depicting **Geoffrey Chaucer as a student at Oxford throwing a party in his rooms**. The drawing shows a medieval-themed gathering with period-appropriate dialogue rendered in pseudo-Middle English dialect ("Noe Parkynnor," "Bygge Diccon," etc.). The scene parodies both Chaucer's historical reputation and contemporary college student behavior—young people drinking, carousing, and behaving rowdily. The satire works on two levels: it humorously imagines the famous medieval poet as a raucous undergraduate, while the affected pseudo-archaic language mocks both historical pretension and the type of affected speech college students might adopt. The joke assumes readers recognize Chaucer as a literary figure worth satirizing in this manner.