This one is hard to rate. Given the diversity of tales, some feel very worthy of five stars while others, not so much...

Overall, what a fun read. If you are sensitive to explicit material, you should probably pass. However, I'm thankful for the band of pilgrims in this collection and will think of a few of their tales often.

I did not read the whole book in English class, but I wish I did. After only reading the Prologue and a few of the tales, I am interested in reading more of the tales. They seem different from other books I have read in English, so to speak. Humor, satire, and other forms of literary narrative were present, and although the old English was a bit unappealing at first it was actually beautifully written.

Maybe more to come when I become an English major? We'll see.

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(Excerpts)
Canterbury is such a mixed bag of tales that I found myself at times wishing to join in and at others wishing I could plug my ears and wipe my mind. Perhaps that is where the brilliance of Chaucer lies.

Reading the old English is pretty easy - it's kind of like reading badly spelt text messages.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four tales which is set as tales told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral in Kent from Southwark Cathedral in London to pay homage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett. The group includes Chaucer as a pilgrim, and he narrates the stories told by other pilgrims including the two tales told by him on the journey.

The storytellers represent different classes in the English society of the time. Through them, Chaucer painted a faithful picture of the lives, attitudes, and morals of various social classes and types of people in medieval England. Chaucer had been a civil servant and had been in the King's service as the controller of customs, justice of the peace, and clerk of the King's work. These government positions must have brought him in direct touch with the commoners of different classes which later influenced him in his tales.

The tales were written in Middle English which was the language of the Anglo-Saxon laypeople. The language of authority and nobility at the time (following the Norman Conquest) was French and the scholarly language was Latin. In such a setting, Chaucer chose Middle English to write his tales. It may be that he wanted his stories to reach the common public, or it also may be that he wanted to promote the commoner's language.

The tales touch on the themes of marital relationships, adultery, chivalry, greed, morals, and religion. Chaucer is ironic and critical on these themes, but at times, his irony was lost on me. The writing is witty and humorous for the most part, but surprisingly, I also found it to be lewd. By modern standards, most of the tales are gross and offensive. But I learned that medieval England culture was relatively coarse in comparison with today. (That was a relief! Also made me want to revisit Voltaire's Candide).

Most of the tales were fun to read (despite a few boring ones), and there were some tales I enjoyed very much, like Knight's Tale (which is my favourite out of all), The Clerk's Tale, The Merchant's Tale, The Shipman's Tale, The Franklin's Tale and the Wife of Bath's Tale . Overall, however, the collection fell short of my expectations.

Granted, this is arguably the very first piece of English literature, but that just goes to show you why all skills must be practiced first.

If you've never read Chaucer in original medieval English, I definitely suggest you give it a go. It is such a satisfying experience and loads of fun to decode and demystify (you usually uncover something dirty or obscene).

If the challenges of translation aren't for you, pick up a translated copy. You can have all the fun without the work.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of over 20 stories which were written near the end of the Fourteenth Century, just prior to 1400. While this is often referred to as an essential in medieval fiction, it is possible to narrow it down a little further and say this is a glimpse of life during the time of the Hundred Years’ War. The collection of tales helps break up this book a bit but it also contains a loose narrative framework throughout the entire The Canterbury Tales. I could go into deep analysis of each tale without doing a disservice to the quality and diversity of Geoffrey Chaucer’s large work. However in an effort to talk about The Canterbury Tales in its entirety, I may have to resort to broad analysis and generalities.

The Fourteenth Century was a violent and unstable period of time in English history; not only was the Hundred Years War raging with the French (1340-1450) but there was the Black Death (1348), famines and rebellions (the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381). This was an unstable time, things were changing; even the Catholic Church which often had a community-building nature was corrupt and abusing its power. Near the end of the 14th Century the Church was a mess, there was the sale of church offices as well as indulgences and pardons as well as greed and moral corruption. The Western Schism (or Papal Schism) took place from 1378 to 1418 where the Church was divided and several men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope. This should give you an idea of just what kind of instability the people in The Canterbury Tales faced.

However this book explored more than this instability; it is a medieval tapestry exploring the whole feel of this period but it might be easier to narrow it down to three major themes. The political, since The Norman conquest of England (1066) the country was gradually processing toward political consolidation and unification, a theme that comes through a number of times within this book. Social and economic changes, following the story of many people around England as urbanisation takes affect and London becomes a more modern city. Finally The Canterbury Tales explores the cultural changes of a changing time; social classes are shifting but still play a big role within this country.

I know I am probably looking at this book through modern eyes but this is the best way I found to wrap my head around what is written. Luckily I didn’t have to read this book in Middle English and got to rely on Nevill Coghill’s translation but I am not going to deny that this was a very difficult book to get through. I found trying to understand the situation as if England changed from medieval into a modern society helped me pick up on the social, economical and political changes. I know London didn’t become an urban city like we know it today but it helped me follow the shifting times. I am not sure if viewing the book this way helped me understand it better or sent me down the wrong path but it doesn’t matter, is there a right or wrong way to interpret literature?

Symbolism, imagery and allegory play a huge part in Chaucer’s tales but it is hard to go into details on this topic because they change from story to story. What I found surprising about this book is not the beautiful poetic lines but how real and raw the emotions played out in each tales. I read an exploration into marriage, growing old, morality, rape, sexual pleasure and even anti-social behaviour. I never expected this from the book and it really surprised me. From a general overview The Canterbury Tales looks at a changing time but each tale goes into a personal look into different people’s lives.

As the narrator, Geoffrey Chaucer plays with the narrative from tale to tale; sometimes he comes off as naïve but then he can be very knowledgeable. I picked up on how heavy he is on the irony, but in all honesty I didn’t have enough knowledge of the times to be able to explore this as much as I would have liked. If it wasn’t for the fact that I read this for a university subject I might have really struggled with this book. A lecture and some reading guides really helped me get something out of this book but like I said, I don’t have enough knowledge of medieval history to fully grasp this book in its entirety.

I mentioned to my dad that I had to read this book and he told me not to bother; he called it crude and vulgar but that only made me excited. I understand now that he had to read this book for high school and found it difficult but I can’t say vulgar is a good word to describe this book. Sure, there are some crude scenes but life is never full of well-mannered moral people. Chaucer explores life at this time and doesn’t shy away from the tough topics; but I think that is what makes this book so great.

This review originally appeared on my blog: http://literary-exploration.com/2014/...

The Canterbury Tales is preachy, hard to read, and for the most part, pretty boring. I feel like I've been in the iambic pentameter wave pool. This is a book that I have wanted to knock off my reading bucket list. I wish I had enjoyed this more but most of it failed to hold my attention and I mainly just wanted it to be over while I was reading it.

Chaucer is considered to be maybe the 2nd best English poet behind Shakespeare, and he did have some moments of brilliance in this collection. The Prioress's Tale was absolutely wonderful, The Miller's Tale is memorable for its bawdiness, but the rest for me just honestly weren't that great.

I wanted to like this more and I'm disappointed in myself for not getting it.

P.S. Pay attention in English class kids! The Canterbury Tales is primarily written in iambic pentameter. There is some prose toward the end which was a nice change of pace.

I only read four tales from this, since those were what were assigned for my class. What I read wasn't too terrible, but I don't exactly have a perfect judgement since I didn't get to read the entirety of the novel.

I must admit that it's been a while since I read The Canterbury Tales. From a perspective of someone who likes historical literature, it's not easy to guess how this book would strike someone who doesn't read classics or doesn't know anything about the time period it was set it. Would they find it boring? I think that always depends on a reader. Literature is unpredictable that way. One can enjoy a work even if one struggles with the language and doesn't know much about the literary epoch it is set in. As far as recommendations goes, obviously this book is a must read for any student of literature. It is certainly an educating read, but how enjoyable it is? It's not easy to answer such a question or to rate such a classic.
Obviously The Canterbury Tales deserves five starts for its historical importance and literary merit. My rates here on goodreads are more subjective, indicating how much I enjoyed a certain book. I did enjoy The Canterbury Tales, but not as much as some other classics. Like with The Decameron, I have my favourites here, stories that I come back to (The Wife of Bath is particularly hilarious and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it). I really need to reread The Canterbury Tales before attempting a longer review.

Not bad, I spose. But I should have read the modern translation instead of trying to struggle through the Middle English version, which is just close enough to modern English to be readable, but far enough away to require footnotes every five words just to help the reader figure out what the hell they just read. After twenty pages or so, this got very, very old.

Read for: Early British Literature