Product Description

This textbook series is ambitious in scope. It provides concise and lucid introductions to major works of world literature from classical antiquity to the twentieth century. It is not confined to any single literary tradition or genre, and will cumulatively form a substantial library of textbooks on some of the most important and widely read literary masterpieces. Each book is devoted to a single work and provides a close reading of that text, as well as a full account of its historical, cultural, and intellectual background, a discussion of its influence, and a guide to further reading. The contributors to the series give full consideration to the linguistic issues raised by each text, and, within the overall framework of the series, are given complete freedom in the choice of their critical method. Where the text is written in a language other than English, full account is taken of readers studying the text in English translation. While critical jargon is avoided, important technical terminology is fully explained and thus this series will be genuinely accessible to students at all levels and to general readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1419709 in Books
• Published on: 1989-11-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 148 pages

From the Back Cover
Chaucer's tale of his motley band of travellers on their pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a Becket have become legendary and still represent, in John Dryden's words, "God's plenty."

The Canterbury Tales, compiled in the late fourteenth century, is an incisive portrait, infused with Chaucer's wry wit and vibrant, poetical languauge. He evokes a spectrum of colourful characters, from the bawdy Wife of Bath to the gallant Knight, the fastidious Prioress and the burly, drunken Miller. As they wend their way from Southwark to Canterbury, tales are told to pass the time, and the stories are as diverse as the narrators, encompassing themes such as adultery, revenge, courtly love, lechery, avarice and penitence.

As humorous today as when it was written over six centuries ago, The Canterbury Tales remains one of the most popular and enjoyable of the classic works of literature.

Customer Reviews

The Canterbury Tales
Steeling myself for the hell I remember this book to be from my school days, I was delighted to find reading it to be a completely different experience!
I couldn't put it down - I can't admit to understanding absolutely all of it, but the notes at the bottom of each page really help to bring the text to life and the book itself brings to life this period of the middle ages.
It gives indepth social commentary which I believe anyone would benefit from having sight of.
I would recommend this book most highly; it is fantastic! (My only regret is there is no sequel)

Ourselves and the Fourteenth Century
This modern translation is for those who struggle with Chaucer's original language. Coghill's melodious verse captures the timely flow of the original text, thus preventing the reading from becoming a slow and erudite undertaking. Chaucer's Tales were not designed for sluggish meditation, but to be read aloud in an engaging manner, which is what makes this translation an ideal buy for those who wish to experience the Tales for their original charm.

The immortal Canterbury Tales is a must for all lovers of great literature. What we can witness in this noble poem "is the concise portrait of an entire nation: high and low, old and young, male and female, rogue and righteous, land and sea, town and country", as Nevill Coghill describes in his introduction to this translation. The past has become magical to us through the great works of Epic poetry; where the Greeks had Homer, and the Roman's Virgil; the English have none other than Geoffrey Chaucer.

It is only infrequently that we can find classic ideas that have captured readers throughout the ages, be it Pickwick's proposed adventure to study his fellow men, Dante's quest for his beloved Beatrice, or indeed Chaucer's undying Pilgrimage; The Canterbury Tales manifests its own unique appeal in an immortal journey through the Tales of many different voices.

On the Eve of a Pilgrimage from a London Cheapside Inn to St Thomas a Becket's shrine in Canterbury, a group of thirty pilgrims are challenged by the inn's Host to a competition: to while away their morrow's journey by each telling a tale; on returning to London their Host will then decided the best storyteller: and their reward? a luxurious meal on behalf of that Pilgrim's fellows. What follows are many tales, of many varieties: those of courtly love, bawdy comedy, fresh wit, menacing macabre, didactic fables, in short, to use John Dryden's words "God's plenty".

But it is the prologue to Chaucer's great collection of tales that marks its individuality from the Likes of Ovid, Petrarch and Boccaccio - of whom some of the tales are largely indebted to. The translator of this edition advocates that "in all literature there is nothing that touches or resembles the prologue". And this is by all means a cogent argument: what we witness at the beginning of Tales is patchwork quilt of Medieval England, a Tapestry of Chaucer's times, or if you like: a doorway into a world long faded away.

The prologue simply follows the task of introducing the diverse tellers of the Tales, and yet in doing so it records a valuable sample of history. William Blake faithfully promulgates the Prologue's vitality by declaring that: "Chaucer is himself the great poetical observer of men, who in every age is born to record and eternize its acts". The Pilgrims are not only well presented characters, they are also true embodiments of normality. What we see in the Tales is not just a snap-shot of Olde England, but something indeed far bigger: a blueprint of our own society's individuals - "the perennial progeny of men and women". What Chaucer portrays to us in his Canterbury Tales is nothing greater than our very selves.

We were not so very different, 700 years ago...
As is proved by the delightfully wicked set of stories mirroring in some respects Boccaccio's Decameron, which predated Chaucer, but which expand on bawdiness and give a fascinating insight into human nature: the very language is stripped of all ambiguity: for example, 'and sodeynly anon, Damyan gan pullen up hir smock and in he throng' is almost something out of a Jilly Cooper, although far more exotic!

And if you don't like the olde English, you can read the translation, which I think is extremely helpful if you're new to Chaucer or don't warm immediately to the lingo.