The Canterbury Tales (Bantam Classics) | Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales (Bantam Classics) | Geoffrey Chaucer | Poetry for the ages.

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The Canterbury Tal...

	The Canterbury Tales (Bantam Classics) Geoffrey Chaucer Bantam Classics, 1982 - 421 pages average customer review:based on 84 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Brilliant

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer inform us of what is was like to live in the Middle Ages and experience a real pilgrimage. This does not read like a novel, rather it is a frame-story that includes a collection of short stories for each character. A Knight's Tale is the classic court romance with chivalry and contempt, although a bit long, it is one of the better tales in this compilation. Chaucer emits his satire exceedingly well through the tale of the Pardoner, sure to entertain the witty reader. Other tales consist of just plain humor, as in the Carpenter's Tale and Reeve's Tale. Do not let the Middle English prohibit you from reading this, for this edition includes both the Middle English, which not exceedinly difficult to read once you get into the rhythm, and modern English. The Canterbury Tales is an absolutely wonderful collection of stories that has something to offer each reader.

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Poetry for the ages.

If you haven't read the Canterbury Tales in their native language than you are missing out. It isn't very hard, once you get in the flow of things it becomes just like reading anything else. The Bantam edition allows you to read the translated or the native version. I was disapointed at the amount of tales in this edition though. I was looking for a fuller picture of the tales, yet the translaters picked the tales that they fealt were the most important and I did enjoy it very much. For any of you out there that want to read the full Canterbury Tales in Middle-English I would suggest the Norton Anthology of Middle English Literature. That is Volume 1A of their English literature Anthology. It shows the full story without any translations. It is very exstensively annotated though, so you can decipher the Middle-English vocabulary.
No matter what edition you read though, your in for a genuine literary treat.

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He writes with ink and parchment...

I bought this book after reading the Pardoner's tale in my High School English class. It's wonderful, and the translation is great, not to mention that Chaucer is one of the best writers of all time. I think that I may slightly prefer Shakespeare, but not by much.. and many of the tales have things in them that I didn't think people even would dare talk about hundreds of years ago.. that was really cool. I will definitely read this book again, when I'm in the mood for it. ^_^

Tedious reading

When I read this, back in high school, my English teacher pumped it up so much beforehand, I was expecting a hilarious, rollicking fun read.
Boy was I disappointed. We read the maybe slightly updated version from the 'olde english' and the main part of the struggle was figuring what the hell was going on. Then, when you finally figured it out, it was something maybe KIND OF funny, in a satirical yet also juvenile way. It basically takes you an hour to decode that once again, some miller is cheating on his wife, with, oh, say a goat.
If you want a 'difficult read,' I would say read existentialism. The payoff at the end of the road, which is usually some "biting" social commentary like 'anti-semitism is bad' isn't worth the pain of ploughing through all the weird spellings and antique words.

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Stories are good, but syntax is lacking

While the 'Tales' in this volume are no less amusing and relevant, I would have preferred for it to have been read in Middle English, maintaining the original flow and meter (which is not that hard to understand after hearing it for a while).

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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