The Canterbury Tales

Posted on 20 October 2018 by Geoffrey Chaucer

Lively, absorbing, often outrageously funny, Chaucer s The Canterbury Tales is a work of genius, an undisputed classic that has held a special appeal for each generation of readers The Canterbury Tales gather twenty nine of literature s most enduring and endearing characters in a vivid group portrait that captures the full spectrum of medieval society, from the exalted Knight to the humble plowman A graceful modren translation facing each page of the text allows the contemporary reader to enjoy the fast pace of these selections from The Canterbury Tales with the poetry of the Middle English original always at first hand. Free Download [ The Canterbury Tales ] author [ Geoffrey Chaucer ] For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr Having recently finished Barbara Tuchman s A Distant Mirror, I was eager to revisit Chaucer and get a feel for the literature of the calamitous 14th century I was struck by how cheerful the whole thing was bawdy, funny, touching and full of memorable characters And the language It is so rich and inventive, changing as each character tells his tale I tried Peter Ackroyd s retelling, which I cannot recommend, and then turned to this as a bridge back to the original Vincent Hopper produced in Having recently finished Barbara Tuchman s A Distant Mirror, I was eager to revisit Chaucer and get a feel for the literature of the calamitous 14th century I was struck by how cheerful the whole thing was bawdy, funny, touching and full of memorable characters And the language It is so rich and inventive, changing as each character tells his tale I tried Peter Ackroyd s retelling, which I cannot recommend, and then turned to this as...First off, I love the Cantebury Tales But I could not give this edition a star rating The reason being is that the modern English translation is not the best I understood the Middle English translation with no problems The lines rhymed and made perfect sense The modern English translation chan...I do plan on finishing up the rest of these tales in another edition, so I think I ll wait until then to comment on the stories themselves, and I ll focus on the translation for now.I managed to tackle 90 95% of this in the original Middle English It s admittedly slightly harder than Shakespeare, but the interlinear translation made it really easy to flick my eyes down a fraction whenever I needed, so I didn t have to go too far out of my way when I needed help Since this book is so bulky and I do plan on finishing up the rest of these tales in another edition, so I think I ll wait until then to comment on the stories themselves, and I ll focus on the translation for now.I managed to tackle 90 95% of this in the original Middle English It s admittedly slightly harder than Shakespeare, but the interlinear translation made it really easy to flick my eyes down a fraction whenever I needed, so I didn t have to go too far out of my way when I needed help Since this book is so bulky and hard to read with one hand, at one point I did reach for a e book edition that wasor less the same but had modernized the spelling of many of the w...Delightfully bawdy There are stories in here that sound like stock jokes I think this is where the man is bedding the miller s wife and to prove that the miller is asleep, they keep pulling hairs out of his ...Greate stuffe.I only read the Miller s Tale this time I was gratified that I can understand the original pretty well and rarely needed the facing page translation It s remarkably vivid about the details of medieval life, with details that no modern author would dare to invent.The Crown Jewels of English literature as funny, saucy, thought provoking and dramatic as they were when they were written some six hundred years ago, full of memorable characters and tales that beg to be re read and re read.I put off reading Chaucer for years, worried that the language would be too old to be easily understood and I did not want to read a modern prose translation But thankfully Chaucer spells phonetically and with a little perseverance one gets used to his idioms and dialect qu The Crown Jewels of English liter...Disclaimer I can t read middle English, but I did slog my way through a couple of the Tales in college I think this edition captures the sense of the original, and makes Chaucer fun to read If you liked Chaucer, you ll enjoy this If you hated Chaucer, give this versi...The editor s note skillfully assists in the reading of this historical English language The tales themselves require patience to truly understand them but the reward is great with wonderful bawdy funThis interlinear translation is a really good choice, but this has issues I dislike in admitting to be abridged and having what could ve been footnotes or line notes placed at the end of the book.

English, Middle (1100-1500)
20 October 2018

Geoffrey Chaucer