I may be a total nerd, but devoting a semester to reading Chaucer in middle English has been one of the best academic decisions I have ever made. One of Chaucer's short poems, The Book of the Duchess, written to condole Chaucer's patron John of Gaunt after he lost is beloved wife Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, is among the most beautiful I have ever read. My class began to read it a year after the death of another angel, Eve Carson, UNC student body president. I'm finding it difficult to put in words, but my reading The Book of Duchess occurred at the right moment. There was something about reading this poem a year after her tragic death that somehow mirrored the reading of this poem to John of Gaunt a year after the death of Blanche. It is a poem truly timeless. Troilus and Criseyde is fantastic as well. I think everyone can identify with Troilus's love-sickness in Book I. And although they appear daunting, there is never a dull moment in The Canterbury Tales. I've even memorized the first sentence of the prologue:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

All of Chaucer in his original middle English. A difficult and challenging work (would recommend having a "translation" into modern English for the long poems if you could), it's amazing to see what the first major poet of English was able to do with the language and his ability to work with old English and middle; as well as being both a pre-Renaissance figure and a highly Medieval one.

I was apprehensive about reading Chaucer due to what I thought was an incorrigible phobia - so unfortunately and tragically cultivated during high school - for everything that is Chaucer. "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote..." What? What? What?

Well, having read, in Middle English, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, The Parliament of Fowls, The House of Fame, his translation of Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy (titled "Boece"), and Troilus and Crisseyde, I must say the phobia was nothing but a childish delusion. One of the many revelations I had in spending a month reading the double-columned, small-type, extra-thin pages was that Chaucer can be FUNNY.

Absolon wants to kiss Alison who's a rich carpenter's wife. Nicholas is Alison's lover. Absolon is at Alison's window, and Alison says fine, just one quick kiss.

This Absolon gan wype his mouth ful drie.
Derk was the nyght as pich, or as the cole,
And at the wyndow out she putte her hole,
And Absolon, hym fil no bet ne wers,
But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers [ass]
Ful savourly, er [before] he were war [aware] of this.

"Tehee!" quod she, and clapte the wyndow to,
And Absolon gooth forth a sory pas.
"A berd! A berd!" quod hende Nicolas

(The Miller's Tale)

Or take a scene where Damyan and January commit adultery right in front of January's blind husband, Mayus. January and Mayus are walking in this private garden and she tells him that she wants some fruit of a tree, where Damyan is hiding:

"So I my foot myghte sette upon youre bak."
"Certes," quod he, "theron shal be no lak,
Mighte I yow helpen with myn herte blood."
He stoupeth doun, and on his bak she stood,
And caughte hire by a twiste, and up she gooth -
Ladyes, I prey yow that ye be nat wrooth;
I kan nat glose, I am a rude man -
And sodeynly anon this Damyan
Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng [thrust]

(The Merchant's Tale)


So he could be funny. And he's actually readable! And since he's the "Father of English Literature," it is worth the time to read him in order to understand how later writers were influenced by him. For example, no less an author than Shakespeare himself took from Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale for his plays, Troilus and Cressida and The Two Noble Kinsmen respectively. Edmund Spenser admired him so much that he wrote his magnum opus in archaic, Chaucer-like English. Then Ezra Pond said: "Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books for ever." I wouldn't go that far, but I think it was definitely worth the effort to read Chaucer.

I took a Chaucer class this semester because I felt like the only way I would get through the Canterbury Tales was if I was forced. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to say the least (and yes, I read them all). Loved the class and this book is a great way to get through Chaucer. There are lots of great notes and many of the works he references within the tales. I highly recommend this book if you set upon the task of tackling Chaucer (and you should).

This anthology of Chaucer's works includes the Canterbury Tales in Middle English.

I'm proud to have read it in the original language. It was a lot of work, but fascinating to imagine how English sounded back then. And of course, I gained a much better feel for the poetry in these tales.

This edition has excellent notes. Although, I can't imagine anyone would read this outside of a college class.

I won't lie and say that I read everything in here in the Middle English. The rating is partially due to the quality of the book (physically, it's one of the nicest looking books I have seen) and the critical material that is also contained within. The introductions and glossary and footnotes are outstanding. Reading the stories without context, I would likely rate them a 2 or 3, but Chaucer deserves some respect considering the time period of their composition. Very clever for him as somewhat of a court figure to manage some of the bawdy tales here by putting them in the mouths of characters telling stories, and some of his recurring motifs are cause for speculation. Some really well-constructed stuff.

This was a read for university.

For what it is worth, Chaucer has a sense of humor! It wasn't what I was expecting at all. I could laugh at the stories, and I could also identify different moral tales from them all at the same time too. You've got to love books which are as cleverly constructed and well written as this. [Note: I haven't read ALL the stories. Some.]

However, I had to translate it myself as well as I was/am learning medieval English for university. At least, how to translate and read it. Even though this wasn't as difficult as Sir Gwain and the Green Knight as I have progressed in my medieval English, it was still a bit trying and stole some of the enjoyment of reading. But this is a personal experience and not a criticism of Chaucer's work.

Elizabeth Fowler is my favorite college professor. I have never met anyone so knowledgable and yet so passionate about her craft. She introduced me to Chaucer and, I think, is heading up the first major revision of the Riverside. Obviously I've not read the entire thing, but I've had a go at a lot of it.

This is the other book I kept from my university days.... It was the was the toughest course I ever took but I learned to really respect English language from reading Chaucer. Still have many parts of this text to read.

I loved the Canterbury Tales. The diversity, the humor, the way characters are portrayed. But I have to admit that all the poems after that part of the book could not catch my attention. I didn't understand most of it and didn't find the translated words at the bottom of the page much help. So I didn't finish The Riverside Chaucer. Maybe some other time.

Studied Chaucer and had to learn middle English to read it in its original text. All of Chaucer's works are in this edition. The first semester we studied his early works, the second semester we studied the Canterbury Tales. My professor was one of the best I had. When we were doing the Miller's Tale, he had us read and prepare for the tutorial. I was laughing out loud reading it at home, but when I went to class, the professor read it to us, with his asides and the class was on the floor in hysterics. One of the best courses I took.

Read for EN2003: Mediaeval and Renaissance Texts, 2010 - 2011

We had to read 'The Miller's Tale' and 'The Franklin's Tale' for our course. I have to admit, I wasn't exactly impressed by the former, although it was interesting to learn about the background of fabliaux, and our Old English department put on a wonderful dramatisation of it! But not really my style of humour. 'The Franklin's Tale' was much more interesting, especially with all of the unanswered questions and comparisons to romantic literature that can be made. I did find them kind of difficult to read, but I found reading them in a Scottish accent helped. (Well, in my head, at least. Despite being born and raised in Scotland my accent is rather boring, but I've heard enough broad ones to imagine it in my head).