Rating: 
Summary: Will never forget it!
Review: hey, you wanna read a really awful book, then this is the book for you! In other words...it bites.
Rating: 
Summary: yuk!
Review: hey, you wanna read a really awful book, then this is the book for you! In other words...it bites.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable translation
Review: I enjoy the translation. I think it's ideal for the classroom. I can appreciate the tales that are streamlined for ease. It's very easy to follow.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable translation
Review: I enjoy the translation. I think it's ideal for the classroom. I can appreciate the tales that are streamlined for ease. It's very easy to follow.
Rating:
Summary: Will never forget it!
Review: I read this during my senior year in high school. I will never forget unwinding the words and finding a truly hysterical work of fiction. It was such an adventure!
Rating:
Summary: It's *Chaucer*, For God's Sake!
Review: Over the years, this book has been banned upways, sideways, and down. Thanks to the Comstock Law (1873), Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales' was prohibited for sale in the United States due to sexual situations and swearing. (In other words, the fun parts.) It continues to be abridged for content and language across the United States.I read Canterbury Tales a while ago. It was an abridged edition. Severely abridged. Entire sections and tales were cut out, for PC and conservative reasons both. I reread it in an unabridged edition, and while even a truncated Chaucer is beautiful, I see how much I missed. Yes, the Tales may be anti-semitic and sexist and Chaucer probably killed puppies just to see their expressions. It's still a beautiful example of writing. Rather than limit himself to portraying the upper classes and more refined manners, Chaucer elected to portray "low" manners and tastes as well, giving a more complete picture of life as he saw it. The completeness of the Tales for that time period blows me away. It's long, but it's worth it. If you can, find an edition that keeps as much of the original language and slang as possible. It's slower reading, but his skill shines through.
Rating:
Summary: Read this, not the Cliff Notes...
Review: The Canterbury Tales were almost ruined for me by my freshman English Lit class. They insisted on making us read it from The Norton Anthology of Literature, which of course is untranslated. This is pointless. Unless one is a specialist or going for a doctorate there is no point in reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle English with all those endless footnotes. It takes one of the greatest books in English Literature - or World Literature, for that matter - and makes it torture. I have no need of "thilke" or "willhem" or "clepen." That is why Nevill Coghill's translation is such a boon. Now we can enjoy it in our own language the way the fourteenth-century English did (in truth, it is not that hard to translate as many of the words stay the same). I have taken to reading it, not as a novel, but as a collection of short stories - skipping around as I please. I think it is agreed that the best parts art the Miller's Tale, The Pardoner's Tale, and The Wife of Bath (and the Prologue, of course) which makes for excellent starting points.
Rating:
Summary: Read this, not the Cliff Notes...
Review: The Canterbury Tales were almost ruined for me by my freshman English Lit class. They insisted on making us read it from The Norton Anthology of Literature, which of course is untranslated. This is pointless. Unless one is a specialist or going for a doctorate there is no point in reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle English with all those endless footnotes. It takes one of the greatest books in English Literature - or World Literature, for that matter - and makes it torture. I have no need of "thilke" or "willhem" or "clepen." That is why Nevill Coghill's translation is such a boon. Now we can enjoy it in our own language the way the fourteenth-century English did (in truth, it is not that hard to translate as many of the words stay the same). I have taken to reading it, not as a novel, but as a collection of short stories - skipping around as I please. I think it is agreed that the best parts art the Miller's Tale, The Pardoner's Tale, and The Wife of Bath (and the Prologue, of course) which makes for excellent starting points.
Rating:
Summary: A Great English Classic!
Review: These tales, in any translation, are a great example of 14th century English folktales and stories. They are actually more enjoyable if read in the old English language, although it is a bit difficult to understand. These tales were penned as poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer sometime between 1380 and 1390. Chaucer is extremely funny if crude, and each of these twenty-four tales is a gem in it's own right. He has based his format on 24 mythical pilgrims that are travelling together to get to a religious shrine. This type of religious pilgrimage was extremely popular in Chaucer's day. Anyway, they help to pass the time of their travels by each telling a tale. These individual tales enable the reader to get a very clear glimpse of the personality of each of the storytellers. The tales are all different and range from bawdy to religious sermons, but they are highly entertaining. I have read these tales numerous times and I never grow tired of rereading them.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: This is a good translation. Coghill has masterfully captured the essence of Chuacer. The tales never fail to amuse, enlgihten, and teach me about life. Note: Though this is poetry, there are NO line numbers.
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