The Canterbury Tales

A collection of humorous tales told by fictional pilgrims on a trip to Canterbury. The variety of the characters and the tales paint an ironic portrait of English life in the fifteenth century. Tales addressed the role of the church in society, the differences between the classes and the secular and non-secular members of the party. Lots of sex and violence coupled with Middle English poetry made this at times light and fun and at times something that had to be concentrated on to get the meaning of the language (and a cheat sheet of Middle English terms was required). Great characters and wit made this an entertaining read and one that I would recommend with the proper translation tools.
( )

Introduzione e commento di Mario Praz ( )

I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to be done with a book. Maybe when I was in school, but not in more recent memory. So… apologies to all the people who have a proper appreciation for classic literature and what Chaucer accomplished here. I do realize this was an impressive and ambitious work and deserves a higher rating for many objective reasons, but my reviews and star ratings are based primarily on my subjective thoughts. I’ve started trying to fit some classics into my reading schedule over the past few years, but I’m not a very scholarly reader and I don’t have a strong foundation in or love for the classics.

For anybody not familiar with the basic premise, The Canterbury Tales has a framing story in which a group of pilgrims who don’t know each other are traveling together toward a shrine in Canterbury. The host of the group talks them into telling stories to help pass the time as they travel. So we have a couple dozen or so pilgrims riding together on horses and somehow sharing stories amongst all of them. I can only assume they were passing around a megaphone or shouting their poetic tales at the top of their lungs or using some sort of relay system…

My edition is in the original Middle English. I was worried I might have trouble with it, and it looked a little intimidating at first, but it wasn’t as difficult as I expected. I read most of it out loud (my cat hates me now) because I found it easier to understand the words through a combination of hearing in my own ears how they sounded combined with the context, plus most of it is in verse so I was able to appreciate the rhythm of it better that way. My edition also has a lot of commentary, ranging from definitions of the words to more extensive commentary about the sources of Chaucer’s tales, their themes, and historical references. I have to admit I skimmed the commentary more and more as I went along, enjoyed the stories less and less, and lost motivation.

According to the commentary, it’s believed that all of the tales were inspired by other works known at the time, but Chaucer put his own spin on it or combined different aspects of different versions of those stories. Most of that went over my head and I was only aware of it thanks to the commentary. The tales were not at all the sort of thing I enjoy reading. Some of them were romances, some of them were “lustances”, lots of them were populated by dishonest, cheating, manipulative people. Some of them were very preachy.

There was some humor here and there. Some of it also caught me by surprise. There I was, reading along in this archaic language about people living in archaic times and suddenly there was something like a guy kissing a woman’s butt and mistaking her pubic hair for a beard. I was so surprised the first time I came across something like that that I had to re-read the text to make sure I hadn’t misinterpreted it. Fortunately I hadn’t misread it, because I think I would have been really alarmed to realize I’d come up with that all in my own head. So in that respect I had some humorous moments, particularly with some of the earlier stories, as some of the content was not at all what I’d been expecting. There’s also some humor just in remembering my reactions as I read various things. So I didn’t enjoy the reading experience itself very much, but I guess I have some enjoyment from the memory of the reading experience now that it’s over!

As far as holding my attention, I think the Man of Law’s Tale probably worked the best for me. The Clerk’s Tale enraged me. That wasn’t the only tale that I had conflicts with of course, but I don’t usually get too up in arms when I read older works that conflict with my values. That one pushed some buttons for me, though. And that last “tale”… that one might have done me in if I hadn’t known it was the very last tale. I guess it was a fitting end considering the characters and the premise, but I think I would have preferred to read another trope-filled romance story and I hate those.

Ok, I have to stop typing this ridiculously long review and go sing and dance about how happy I am that I’m finally done now! ;) ( )

Who could expect that a series of tales written in the 1300's would still be read today - and not only that but that they wouldn't bore the pants off of people? I didn't like all of them, but most of the tales were actually entertaining. I wasn't too terribly angry at having to read them for my high-school English class, unlike other books (Great Gatsby & Wuthering Heights). ( )

As you can probably guess from my blithering, I really liked this one. As you probably also guessed, this is actually my second time reading this, and no, I’m not reviewing my rereads as a rule. However, this one took me a month to get through (Middle English and all that) and, as I’ve said, I really liked it, so I figure it deserves some thoughts. So:

Chaucer is a really good writer, y’all. He somehow manages to encapsulate characters and relationships in small amounts of space; tell stories that are still interesting, relevant, and relatable 650-odd years later; make you laugh and cry and worry while sticking to some pretty rigid poetic forms; and run the gamut of medieval literary genres in, like, 400 pages. Admittedly, his frame story is more of a sketch and some of the tales get into territory (usually misogynistic, in one instance racial) that makes me-the-21st-century-reader uncomfortable, but I also don’t think I should fail him for not living up to standards that didn’t exist when he was writing.

The Tales were pretty eye-opening for me too, since I was a teen the last time I read them and I’m a lot more widely read now. Like, that trope goes back that far? He was writing that genre? Had read that book? I also think a lot of the satire and sex went over my head the first time, but that has, thankfully, now been corrected.

All that said, unless you’re a masochistic nerd like me, read it in Modern English. You’ll get all the best bits, even if it loses something in translation.

10/10 ( )