Books with title Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury[2]) is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400.[3] In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's work.[4] It was during these years that Chaucer began working on his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. After a long list of works written earlier in his career, including Troilus and Criseyde, House of Fame, and Parliament of Fowls, The Canterbury Tales is near-unanimously seen as Chaucer's magnum opus. He uses the tales and descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church. Chaucer's use of such a wide range of classes and types of people was without precedent in English. Although the characters are fictional, they still offer a variety of insights into customs and practices of the time. Often, such insight leads to a variety of discussions and disagreements among people in the 14th century. For example, although various social classes are represented in these stories and all of the pilgrims are on a spiritual quest, it is apparent that they are more concerned with worldly things than spiritual. Structurally, the collection resembles Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, which Chaucer may have read during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372.It has been suggested that the greatest contribution of The Canterbury Tales to English literature was the popularisation of the English vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language centuries before Chaucer's time, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries—John Gower, William Langland, the Pearl Poet, and Julian of Norwich—also wrote major literary works in English. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was seminal in this evolution of literary preference.While Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems, the intended audience of The Canterbury Tales is more difficult to determine. Chaucer was a courtier, leading some to believe that he was mainly a court poet who wrote exclusively for nobility.The Canterbury Tales is generally thought to have been incomplete at the end of Chaucer's life. In the General Prologue,[5] some 30 pilgrims are introduced. According to the Prologue, Chaucer's intention was to write four stories from the perspective of each pilgrim, two each on the way to and from their ultimate destination, St. Thomas Becket's shrine (making for a total of about 120 stories). Although perhaps incomplete, The Canterbury Tales is revered as one of the most important works in English literature. It is also open to a wide range of interpretations.[6]

Nevill Coghill’s masterly and vivid modern English verse translation with all the vigor and poetry of Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Middle EnglishA Penguin ClassicIn The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. A story-telling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight’s account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath’s Arthurian legend, to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook. Rich and diverse, The Canterbury Tales offer us an unrivalled glimpse into the life and mind of medieval England.For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

"Hopper's rendering is as close, as word for word, as any translation of 'The Canterbury Tales'... " —The New YorkerGeoffrey Chaucer (c.1340–1400), penned his masterpiece in a vernacular that was the standard dialect in the southeast of England during his lifetime—a language of rich vitality, but also very different from the English we speak today. This useful volume presents readers with the vigor, liveliness, and humor of Chaucer’s original Middle English poetry, interspersed line-by-line with Professor Vincent Hopper’s modern, graceful, and easy-to-understand translation.This new edition, updated with an enlightening new introduction by Andrew Galloway, also features four newly translated narratives.The Canterbury Tales is among the earliest of the great narrative poems written in the English language. is a set of stories that a diverse group of travelers tell to one another at the end of each day. They had set off by foot on a religious pilgrimage from the Tabard Inn in London to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket in England’s cathedral town of Canterbury. This volume opens with Chaucer’s own famous Prologue, and then presents the best among those many tales, which demonstrate Chaucer’s skill in portraying a wide range of very different personalities. For instance, we meet the religiously pious but haughty Prioress, the comically bawdy Miller, and the genially earthy Wife of Bath, among many others. Through it all, we are treated to Chaucer’s own voice, which is worldly wise, often ironic, sometimes self-deprecating, and always good-natured. Here in a newly updated edition is an attractive and approachable textbook for students of English literature. It’s also a richly entertaining volume for the enlightened general reader This new edition gives today’s readers an awareness as never before that The Canterbury Tales is one of the great masterpieces of world literature. Continues to offer the benefits of the previous critically acclaimed edition by presenting the original Middle English of Chaucer’s poetry with an elegant, direct, line-by-line and often word-by-word translation. This format gives students and general readers immediate appreciation of Chaucer’s last and greatest narrative poem. Features a new set of up-to-date notes and resources for further study. Four additional key narratives newly translated from Chaucer’s original text respond to the modern reader’s willingness to explore The Canterbury Tales’ brilliantly experimental approach to storytelling. Includes a stimulating new introduction that encourages modern readers to embrace various difficult-to-understand Chaucerian turns of phrase so that they can fully appreciate the fine artistry of Chaucer’s poetic style.

Read in a mixture of Middle-English and modern English, The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.

The original text, annotated, and in modern English spelling. Published after his death in 1400, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales comprise a collection of 24 short stories, presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The collection has been revered for centuries as one of the most important works of English literature.

When a group of pilgrims bound for Canterbury Cathedral meet on the road, they agree to tell stories to pass the time. Each story reflects a different segment of society, from the pious to the bawdy, and has given countless readers a look into fourteenth-century English life. The stories can be read on their own or as part of the entire work and have been translated from their original middle English by D. Lain Purves.Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes Get your next Xist Classic title for Kindle here: http://amzn.to/1A7cKKl Find all our our books for Kindle here: http://amzn.to/1PooxLl Sign up for the Xist Publishing Newsletter here. Find more great titles on our website.

Why be frightened of the most wonderful collection of tales ever written? No Fear: The Canterbury Tales makes it simple for students to love Chaucer’s masterpiece in all its humor, bawdiness, and poignancy. It features the original text on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right; in addition, there is a complete list of characters with descriptions and plenty of helpful commentary.

The precise, unerring, delicately emphatic characterizations for which The Canterbury Tales is so famous are no more extraordinary than Chaucer’s utter mastery of English rhythms and his effortless versification. Ranging from animal fables to miniature epics of courtly love and savagely hilarious comedies of sexual comeuppance, these stories told by pilgrims on the way to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury reveal a teeming, vital fourteenth-century English society on the verge of its Renaissance.These tales bring together a band of pilgrims who represented most of the occupations and social groups of the time. The diversity of the narrators in turn made possible a varied collection of tales including chivalric romance, spiritual allegory, courtly lay, beast fable and literary satire.

Nevill Coghill’s masterly and vivid modern English verse translation with all the vigor and poetry of Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Middle EnglishA Penguin ClassicIn The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. A story-telling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight’s account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath’s Arthurian legend, to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook. Rich and diverse, The Canterbury Tales offer us an unrivalled glimpse into the life and mind of medieval England.For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.