The Canterbury Tales: A Selection 1st Edition by Geoffrey Chaucer (PDF)

Description

This edition offers a selection of ten of the most widely read of the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English, along with the General Prologue and Chaucer’s Retraction, where he apologizes for the unworthy parts of the poem. Drawing from the same text as the full Broadview edition of the Tales, which is based on the famous Ellesmere Manuscript, this edition also features a critical introduction, marginal translations in modern English of difficult words, and explanatory footnotes. The appendices from the complete edition are also included in their entirety, along with a sampling of illustrations from the Ellesmere manuscript.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “David Wright’s new verse translation of the poems from the Canterbury Tales is lively, readable…it should lead many delighted readers to Chaucer.”–Manuscripta”Indeed the best translation I have seen and will replace the version I had been using. The binding appears able to withstand constant use, and the price is fine for student budgets. This text, with Kane’s biography and the Chaucer Glossary will make a fine course!”–The College of Staten Island, City University of New York”With Wright’s translation in print, there is no excuse for withholding Chaucer from any class offering an introduction to literature.”–Anthony Ugolnik, Franklin & Marshall College”I have found this translation to be the most thorough and easily read. I will recommend it to all my students as a companion to our main text.”–Paul R. Lehman, University of Central Oklahoma”I reviewed all the versions of Canterbury Tales in print and yours was by far the most lucid translation–real resonances of the original.” –Dean Rader, SUNY, Binghamton From the Back Cover This edition offers a selection of ten of the most widely read of the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English, along with the General Prologue and Chaucer’s Retraction, where he apologizes for the unworthy parts of the poem. Drawing from the same text as the full Broadview edition of the Tales, which is based on the famous Ellesmere Manuscript, this edition also features a critical introduction, marginal translations in modern English of difficult words, and explanatory footnotes. The appendices from the complete edition are also included in their entirety, along with a sampling of illustrations from the Ellesmere manuscript. About the Author Robert Boenig is Professor of English at Texas A&M University. Andrew Taylor is Associate Professor of English at the University of Ottawa. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐School read and daughter does not like

⭐Many stories for different occasions

⭐OK. If you’re bored and like to read reviews, or are considering buying this book by choice, here’s a warning:* Imma trash Canterbury Tales regardless of what literary geniuses say. *Some stories in the Canterbury Tales would make the writers of South Park blush (lookin’ at you, Miller!). This was a required textbook for a lit class. Instructor said “If you don’t laugh out loud at The Miller’s Tale, you may as well drop this class.” If we hadn’t been in week 9 of 11 in a course required for my degree, I would be richer and less annoyed right now.There are a couple good parts here, but the rest of it reads like an ad for brain bleach. Why it’s considered a classic worthy of intense study still escapes me after listening to hours of lectures, writing two one-page papers and a 5-page essay about it.I gave it two stars for the Prologue’s lyric descriptions of the knight, the parson and the ploughman, which show the author could have been a much better writer if he hadn’t tried so hard to combine snide commentary, bathroom humor and classical meanderings. To be fair, I’ve never liked the Three Stooges, either. It’s that type of humor, only coarser.In several places the tales are a “borrowed” re-telling or adaptation of older ones, butchered or embellished by Chaucer to the point of serving as an excellent sleep aid. In my doubtless very plebian and unrefined world, basing half your book on other writers’ tales is called plagiarism.If you’re getting into classics and have a choice, may I suggest from the same lit class Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Don Quixote, or even Beowulf with its ancient but lovely language in the Heaney translation, as more entertaining and educational reads.My professor tells me there’s deeper meaning here. I must be a very shallow person, then, because I’d rather read the label on a box of oatmeal – more wholesome and probably better written. The Miller’s Tale’s Alison, the Sweet Weasel, is a slut to put the thing in plain terms, and the Wife of Bath not much better. Don’t get me started on the Pardoner, whose religious hypocrisy sets new lows even compared to our time. That tale was mildly amusing, if you enjoy satire.Overall, this book should prove very useful in the current lavatory paper shortages. There, I’ve found some use for Chaucer.

⭐I have purchased several of these well-constructed little Penguin editions. For Chaucer’s CANTERBURY TALES I was expecting, perhaps, a bilingual version on opposing pages or an interlinear transliteration of the Middle English original, but these were not to be. Instead, this version contains a very readable “modern English” verse rendition by Nevill Coghill, the first printing of which occurred in 1951. It is certainly not the language of Chaucer, but Coghill does an admiral job of maintaining the humor and spirit of the tales. He is an able rhymer and reminds that there is merit (and considerable effort, apparently) in compiling a version that is accessible enough to unfamiliar readers to be easily followed and understood, but still lyrical enough to signal that they are experiencing something special in the history of English Letters — the unique underlying forms and style that make Chaucer “the father of English poetry.” For readers who wish to graduate to the actual Middle English text, that version is available in a relatively inexpensive Penguin Classics paperback edition that the publisher identifies as the original [Middle English] language of Chaucer. Readers are advised to choose carefully when ordering, lest they receive an inappropriate version for their needs!

⭐This review is for Kindle version of the Penguin Classics edition of the Canterbury Tales, edited by Neville Coghill. This version is in modern English.The Canterbury Tales follow a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, a cathedral town in England. Having all coincidentally stayed in the same inn, the group decides to go Canterbury together. The inn’s owner, the Host, decides to make the journey more interesting by asking everyone in the party to tell a story: whoever tells the best story, in his opinion, will win a free dinner. The author, Geoffrey Chaucer, is a member of the party and serves as the narrator, and even tells a couple stories himself.Thus follows a series of poems. The topics vary wildly, and include faith, romance, gender equality, and wealth. Western culture has changed a lot since the Tales were written–but in some ways, we haven’t changed at all. There is also occasional vulgar and perverted humor (my favorite–and not something I was expecting from medieval poetry).Just as the Tales vary wildly in topic, so too do they vary in quality. Some are quick, enjoyable, absorbing reads, while others are snooze fests that are a chore to get through. This is the main reason I have given the Tales four stars.The Tales are incomplete. Some of the poems were left unfinished with no in-story explanation, while others are interrupted by other characters. The metanarrative is never resolved (ie, the Host never picks the winner). The Penguin Classics edition also cuts the two prose tales, The Tale of Melibee and the Parson’s Tale, and replaces them with summaries.

⭐Good

⭐Arrived as scheduled and in said condition

⭐Remarkable insight into life 700 years ago. Not much has changed!

⭐I really don’t know what this book is trying to achieve. On one side is a modern verse translation of the original Middle English; on the facing page is a even more modern prose “translation” of the completely comprehensible text opposite! Chaucer for complete idiots, and I regret buying it!It’s one of those volumes with no named author or editor, nor any other details of the book’s provenance.

⭐I have loved Chaucer’s work since my days at Grammar School in the 1940’s and 1950’s and this edition affords my return to the world of”Middle English.”. There are good translations available to read alongside if this is necessary and in particular I would recommend that of NevillCoghill written when at Exeter College, Oxford. I am continuing to make my way alone currently and enjoying every minute of this serious but veryentertaining work of life in the period in which Chaucer lived and wrote. The characters come to life very readily and the “tales” they tell are really quite something ! I recommend it highly and wish you good luck along your pilgrimage from London to Canterbury.

⭐How can anyone not like this very well “translated” work? Full of character (and characters), each pilgrim tells his or her own tale, some mysterious, some comic, some bawdy, on their way to Canterbury. Reading this made me realise that human nature may change over the centuries, but the human heart does not. Excellent and 10 out of 10.

⭐*This review relates specifically to the KINDLE edition*I am very disappointed by this Kindle book. It is essentially unreadable. There appear to be no explanatory footnotes in the Kindle edition so the numbers in brackets in the text that relate to the footnotes are useless. There are translation of various words indicated by an asterisk that are jumbled untidily amongst the text. This has clearly not been properly adapted as an e-book. It may be a cheap e-book but it money thrown away.

⭐I bought this to help with my British Middle Ages class at university, and found that the translation was really good and comprehensible. However, the translators didn’t even attempt to rhyme the lines as Chaucer had (except on those occasions where they happened to rhyme anyway), and there weren’t corresponding line numbers, so if you’re reading a Middle-English version and have trouble understanding the language, you can’t just find the same line in this version – you have to read through it until you think you’ve found the right place – of you just go through each line-by-line, but that gets a bit irritating.However, when just considering this book without comparing it to others, it is well-translated and has a useful bit at the back entitled “Explanatory Notes” where it briefly goes over each tale and explains the translations and sometimes words and how they would have differed in Middle English.I’d say it was a good buy.

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