Rating: 
Summary: Your Pilgrimage Stops Here
Review: Anyone with any claim to an interest in Chaucer MUST read this book - translations just can't convey the subtleties of his wit. Besides, once you get the hang of it, (admittedly despite being over a ninety-foot drop in places), Middle English isn't that hard. Try reading the original Beowulf - the Wife of Bath's tale will make you weep with relief. This edition is THE definitive Chaucer, as all the scholars will tell you, but it's also the most reader-friendly, with both glosses at the bottom of each page and a full index at the back. This collection of stories is a thousand times funnier, smarter and subtler than anything out of Hollywood, and although written over six hundred years ago, containing fairies, sorcerers and talking animals, are somewhat more reflective of real society. I just hope James Cameron never finds out about them...:-)
Rating:
Summary: Your Pilgrimage Stops Here
Review: Anyone with any claim to an interest in Chaucer MUST read this book - translations just can't convey the subtleties of his wit. Besides, once you get the hang of it, (admittedly despite being over a ninety-foot drop in places), Middle English isn't that hard. Try reading the original Beowulf - the Wife of Bath's tale will make you weep with relief. This edition is THE definitive Chaucer, as all the scholars will tell you, but it's also the most reader-friendly, with both glosses at the bottom of each page and a full index at the back. This collection of stories is a thousand times funnier, smarter and subtler than anything out of Hollywood, and although written over six hundred years ago, containing fairies, sorcerers and talking animals, are somewhat more reflective of real society. I just hope James Cameron never finds out about them...:-)
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: Being a typical "ugly American":), I saw no real significance to the saying that, "to truly understand a text, you must read it in its original language." Middle English, being so close a derivative (or so I thought!) to modern English, didn't count. When reading the Riverside Chaucer, I found out how wrong I was, to have assumed that just because I read the Canterbury Tales' translations, that I knew the true magic of the tales, as well as the other texts that Chaucer had written. You will find the double entendres (some refined, some humorously crude - e.g. to call a woman quente [sp?] is to call her genteel AND a rather disparaging reference to her anatomy!), tons of puns, and political references that no modern translation can properly address (read the Knight's Tale, friends, and ask yourself how noble this man was, dressed in a rusting tunic, and having participated in some of the worst massacres in then-modern Christendom). This book is THE AUTHORITATIVE source on Chaucer, and with its constant referencing to help one through difficult Middle English meanings, background information, and details about the writings itself, you gain a better appreciation of the text, the world in which it was presented, and the magic woven by a true master of literature. Well worth it!
Rating:
Summary: forget the canterbury tales
Review: If it hadn't bee for this book, I wouldn't have been introduced to the awesome shorter works of Chaucer. I would have only associated him with the tired Tales of which he is so renowned.
Rating:
Summary: forget the canterbury tales
Review: If it hadn't bee for this book, I wouldn't have been introduced to the awesome shorter works of Chaucer. I would have only associated him with the tired Tales of which he is so renowned.
Rating: 
Summary: The Uneven "?Father?" of English Literature
Review: If you are going to read Chaucer--and, truly to be educated, I guess one must--do not go to the trouble of buying this massive volume. Read a selection of the best, because so much of Chaucer is not the best that one wonders why read him at all. Perhaps the answer to the latter question is because of our obsession with firsts: he is one of the first British poets, and indeed a voluminous amount of his work has survived. As far as medieval literature goes, I find parts of the Decameron and all of Dante infinitely superior. If you really want to invest your time and money wisely, read the Riverside Shakespeare or the Riverside Milton...Leave Chaucer to the "experts."
Rating: 
Summary: Complete but not convenient
Review: If you want a complete edition of Chaucer's works, this is the only one available. And there's no question of Chaucer's greatness. His language is arguably more beautiful than Shakespeare's, if only because Middle English is a more musical language than modern English. But you need good footnotes for Chaucer; here we have a glossary at the back, a set of textual notes in a separate appendix, and footnotes--so there are three different places that you have to go to for questions about Chaucer's language! A major editing blunder. In addition, there are no color images of Chaucer, and only one black and white image.
Rating:
Summary: An easy and profitable journey.
Review: Middle-English is not as daunting as it sounds. Once you get it down you are in for a reading experience that is truly amazing. This was my first book that I read out of Modern English in it's native tongue, and I am truly greatful for it.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: Riverside 3 has all of Chaucer's major poems and two major prose works, a translation of Boethius and the Treatise on the Astrolabe, in Middle English. In addition to these, it includes several (relatively) short lyrics, some of doubtful authorship, and a Middle English translation of the (French) Romance of the Rose, done partly by Chaucer. Spelling and punctuation have been regularized throughout, to make the poems more accessible. The insertion of commas is often dubious (for instance, in the Envoy to the Clerk's Tale, "lat him care and wepe and wrynge and waille" becomes "lat hym care, and wepe, and wrynge, and waille" for no evident reason) but maybe that's inevitable. If one is very particular one can always look up the textual notes. The bottom-of-page glosses and explanatory notes could be better; there are several passages that an inexperienced reader of Middle English might find difficult but that are not explained in either place. The notes on mythological references etc. are more consistently helpful. The Introduction is all right with grammar/pronunciation, but could be more thorough. The glossary takes a little getting used to, because not all variants are considered (esp. i and vowel y are treated as the same letter), but is pretty good once you get used to it. You don't need to use it very often because the obviously difficult words are glossed at the bottom of the page. The poetry, of course, is as good as it gets, and also very entertaining. Chaucer's range of styles is particularly amazing. And as in winter leves been biraft,
Eche after other, til the tree be bare,
So that ther nis but bark and braunche y-laft,
Lyth Troilus, biraft of ech wel-fare,
Y-bounden in the blake bark of care.
-- Troilus and Criseyde Bk IV He stoupeth doun, and on his bak she stood,
And caughte hire by a twiste, and up she gooth -
Ladyes, I prey yow that ye be nat wrooth;
I kan nat glose, I am a rude man -
And sodeynly anon this Damyan
Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng.
-- The Merchant's Tale "What is this world? What asketh men to have?
Now with his love, now in his colde grave,
Allone, withouten any compaignye."
-- The Knight's Tale
Rating:
Summary: You get less than you pay for
Review: That Chaucer was a brilliant author should not be disputed, and this text, produced from studious examination of the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscripts, reflects that brilliance. But one is expected to buy this particular edition for the sake of, or, at least, one pays for, the editorial comments. These are consistently, and rather annoyingly, poor. Many of the annotations are trite and obvious, but some are, which is much worse, misleading or even incorrect. Each work has a different editor, but I have found this problem amongst each editor's work I have seen. Alternate views of the text from those of the editor, however widely held, are ignored or the suggestion is made that they have been proven invalid. Too often, as well, one finds no commentary on the lines that need it and paragraphs on the lines before and after them. Similar problems may be found in the glosses of the text. Though sometimes useful, more often the page is filled with explanations -- and not always especially good ones -- of the obvious words, while one must go to the back or to a Middle English dictionary to find the words with which one needs help. If you're looking for a good text of Chaucer, you may be paying for more than you'll get with this edition.
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