It's tough sledding at times and it's not for everyone. . .but you'll never forget the Wife of Bath's tale. . .ever.

utter drag

A beautiful piece of work, as long as it's in the original Middle English. Every translation I've ever seen loses most of the flavour and brilliance of the original. Reading it in Middle English is not particularly difficult (buy an edition with good footnotes) and it will reward the your effort. Chaucer's use of multiple viewpoints, his self-deprecating humour, the structure of the work, and the flow of his language make this one of the finest works in English literature.

Canterbury Tales is one of the best books I have read.

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is one of the greatest classics of English literature. It provides a solid depiction of society in the Late-Middle Ages. Essentially this is a set of short stories revolving around a spiritual pilgramage to the shrine at Canterbury. Each short story contains a moral, a tale geared towards a particular segment of society; such as the knight; the squire, the merchant, the working-man, the Wife of Bath. Chaucer doesn't necessarily offer an opinion on pressing matters, rather he sought to express class differences within English society. He always beats around the question. The main theme of the story, one which highly debated during this period in Western history, was the notion of sovereignty and free will in the fact of an omnipotent God. This can be reflected in how Chaucer expresses feudal relations of the period: in the Knights Tale, the Duke controls the fate of two prisoners to seeking to love one woman and the prisoners are simply resigned to this fact as being part of their destiny. Chaucer's tales teach us about the value of the individual. Marriage and relationships with other people ought to be based on mutual respect, which is what the Clerk tried to teach to the Wife of Bath. In the very funny Wife of Bath's Tale, she believed that women ought to be superior to their husbands, while the Clerk, a philosophy student, believed that human relationships ought to be put on a more equal basis. The Wife of Bath should know a little something about marriage, she had gone through five husbands! And they all got away! It's based on a sense of inner worth and doing the right thing. The moral? It is better to judge people by their actions and not their looks. Life has to be grounded on something more than mere appearances and ritual. Chaucer believed that religious thought had to be grounded on more than just going through the motions of such ritual, it had to be grounded on knowledge and truth. Canterbury is a very human tale. Chaucer portrays and accepts humanity for what it is; he seems to despise the hypocrisy of the period's institutions. Greed, sexuality and even death are some of the concepts that Chaucer elucidates here. It gives us a linear progression of human living with an emaphasis on the transience versus permanence. It's poetry that offers a practical lesson, thus making it very unique as a piece of literature from the Middle Ages.

One of the cornerstone works of all literature and the true significant startingpoint of the narrative tradition in English. The language is absolutely beautiful, the poetics are of the first order. The tales are humorous, ribald, illuminating in terms of the values of the time in which they were written, inventive (following Boccaccio's models, of course), evocative. The tension between the Pilgrims is very well handled, indicating the class antagonism of early modern England. "The Miller's Tale" is so damn funny and "The Pardoner's Tale" is one of the most disconcerting yarns in all of literature. Chaucer was a genius, and when you consider how relatively little he had to go on in terms of influence, forms and conventions, his accomplishment is astounding. And as always, KikiD is displaying gross ignorance and stupidity. How anyone can say that The Canterbury Tales is "poorly written" is beyond me: especially when it comes from someone who can hardly put together a sentence. The CT is "evasive?" In what way? If anything, this is one of the most in-your-face works of the classical canon. Condescending? To whom? I rather doubt this idiot has ever read this book. It sure doesn't sound like it. Sounds like the only avid reading KikiD does is on the back of cereal boxes.

A great set of stories, but it really needs to be studied to be enjoyed. Once you've been taught the pronounciations, the quality of the work is lyrical and lighthearted. This was one of the first works that showed me literature does not need to be stuffy to be classic.

I am an avid reader, especially of the "classics." However, this wasn't always the case. As a young man in high school my motto was "why read about it when you can do it." Scary, huh. I resented English/lit teachers telling me what to read and when; still I often ended-up liking what had been forced down my throat. This was not the case with Canterbury Tales. I deplore this work. Last week it came up in a convo about lit and the focus shifted to "is there a role for it in modern society/is it still relevant." I actually spent time trying to justify reading -- or forcing someone to read -- this book. I could not come up with a reason. Did I mention it is evasive, poorly written and condescending.