Canterbury Tales

[cacian]

Do you have a favourite?
Any favourite word/lexicon and quotes would be great!

[islandclimber]

Now this is a great question Cacian.

I love The Miller's Tale. So bawdy and ribald.

And then I've always had a thing for the Sir Thopas tale as well.

[qimissung]

It's been too long since I've read them, but I taught "The Pardoner's Tale" a year or so back. I always enjoy that one.

[cacian]

It's been too long since I've read them, but I taught "The Pardoner's Tale" a year or so back. I always enjoy that one.

''radix malorum est cupiditas'' or greed the root of evil. This somehow reminds me of the l'Avare by Moliere.
Any reason why you do enjoy this one qimissung?

[MorpheusSandman]

Summoner's is probably the funniest. The teenager in me always laughs at the fact that the tale builds up to an epic fart joke. I was also always partial to the Pardoner's Tale, which reminds me a lot of of one my favorite films, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The Kngiht's Tale may be the most beautifully written.

[cacian]

Now this is a great question Cacian.

I love The Miller's Tale. So bawdy and ribald.

And then I've always had a thing for the Sir Thopas tale as well.

Thank you islandclimeber. I am not so much familiar with the Miller's Tale but I am reading now to acquaint myself. Do you have favourite piece or quote from the tales. I gather it is heavily biblical the Miller's tale. Noah and the flood is being mentioned.

[Lokasenna]

I love the Merchant's Tale, with the Miller's a very close second. That said, my favourite characters overall are Dame Allison and Chaucer himself.

You'll enjoy the Miller, cacian - and whilst there are biblical tones, it is very much meant to be a dirty story!

[FenwickS]

It is the only one I've read, and yet, I am sure hands down that it is my favourite, and that's of course the Miller's Tale.
You know why ;)

[YesNo]

My favorite is The Wife of Bath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wife_of_Bath%27s_Tale

[Clovis]

I'd only read one of the Canterbury Tales, involving gold greed being the death of all involved. A local book store had this huge Encyclopedia edition in a single volume which is still published in the UK, despite the internet, and awesome quick reference book for a great many fields of study, I can't thing of its name now? Anyway, one small area of the book dealt with common quotes and sayings, I was surprise to learn there is almost an equal amount for Chaucer as Shakespeare.

[Charles Darnay]

It's so hard to pick. The Knight's Tale for when I want great poetry, The Reeve's tale when I want bawdy humour (although the Miller's Tale is great too for that) - Wife of Bath's Tale for a solid Romance....but I think the Nun's Priest's tale tops my list.

[cacian]

My favorite is The Wife of Bath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wife_of_Bath%27s_Tale

Hi YesNo thank you this is great. I am researching into how the tales came about.

[Clovis]

Looking at all these posts, I need to read these, I'm must. Thanks for all the great recommendations!

[Charles Darnay]

Hi YesNo thank you this is great. I am researching into how the tales came about.

Many of them are based on older stories (folk stories, fables &c.) and others - particularly the more down to earth ones - are oral stories that were circulating around at the time.

[cacian]

Many of them are based on older stories (folk stories, fables &c.) and others - particularly the more down to earth ones - are oral stories that were circulating around at the time.

Charles I thank you. May I ask do you have a favourite passage quote or words from the Nun's Priest? I am just collecting these.

[Calidore]

Looks like you should have made this a poll, cacian.

I vaguely remember reading a few of these in either late grade school or early high school. Unsurprisingly for a teenage boy, my only clear memory is of "a fart as great as a thunder-clap."

Is there a good modern-spelling version with notes out there? I'd be interested in reading the book again as an adult, but I have no interest in trying to decipher Middle English.

[qimissung]

This one purports to be reader friendly, with modern spelling:

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/webcore/murphy/canterbury/


I like this one:


http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gchaucer/bl-gchau-can-pard.htm

[Calidore]

Cool, thanks for the links!

[cacian]

Looks like you should have made this a poll, cacian.

I vaguely remember reading a few of these in either late grade school or early high school. Unsurprisingly for a teenage boy, my only clear memory is of "a fart as great as a thunder-clap."

Is there a good modern-spelling version with notes out there? I'd be interested in reading the book again as an adult, but I have no interest in trying to decipher Middle English.
Hehe the quote is funny. True about Middle English it is very depressing to look at.

[MorpheusSandman]

Is there a good modern-spelling version with notes out there? I'd be interested in reading the book again as an adult, but I have no interest in trying to decipher Middle English.I'd recommend the David Wright translation from Oxford World Classics. There are also some side-by-side translations online, (http://www.canterburytales.org/canterbury_tales.html) which are really helpful. I was also quite trepidatious about trying to learn Middle English, but I was surprised by how easy it was to pick up. Much of the language remains unchanged from modern English, and the bits that are different are often only slightly different so it's easy to understand in the context. The words that are radically different tend to appear often enough so you remember what they mean. By the time I got to about the 5th or 6th tale, I rarely had to glance at the footnotes in my Riverside Edition to translate anything. FWIW, Chaucer is much, much better in ME because the sound is so unique and incapable of being reproduced without lessening either the effect or obscuring the meaning.

[Lokasenna]

Middle English really is not that difficult, and Chaucer's language in particular is very accessible - compared to other popular Middle English texts, such as Piers Plowman or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer's works are immediately comprehensible.

My advice is to obtain a copy of the Riverside Chaucer and just go for it - you'll be amazed at how easy you find it to understand.

[Charles Darnay]

I found the language of the Gawain poet much easier to digest than Chaucer - but that might be because the lines are less dense. But I agree that ME is not overwhelmingly difficult and is extremely fun, particularly if you read it out loud.

[Seasider]

I took my English "A" Level in 1954 And the Chaucer section was The Prologue and The Prioresses' Tale. It would not be set now I suspect because it tells the story of a young boy who has to pass through the Jewish Ghetto to get to school. He is deeply pious,even at 7 years old and he loves singing hymns to The Virgin Mary on his walk. This so enrages the Jews that they capture him, slit his throat and throw him into a sort of water butt.

His mother goes looking for him and after a lot of fruitless searching, decides to sing the same hymns as her son did. Suddenly she hears his voice and led by it she finds his body. She asks him how is it he can still sing and the boy tells her that The Virgin put something on his tongue, I forget what, and that enabled him to keep singing. She takes the object off his mouth and he dies.
All the town's Jews were hanged.

The antisemitism was never pointed out,let alone discussed. It was described to me as the kind of tale The Prioress would have told because of her extreme piety. Though Chaucer goes to a lot of trouble to expose that in his description of her speech and behaviour. It's my least favourite for obvious reasons and when I thought about it in later years I was shocked that it had been on our syllabus a mere 10 years after the revelation of The Holocaust.

As for my favourite it is The Nun's Priest's Tale followed by The Miller's Tale.(Which is a hoot)
.