The Canterbury Tales

I'm not terribly sure what it is about...but I sometimes have to memorize passages from it. Honestly, it really is fun to say... "Want that April with his shoores soote, the droughte of March hathpeirced to the roote and bathed every vein in switch liquor of which Vertu engandred is the floore. Wan Zephryus ache with this sweete breathe..."

Obviosly as a set text at school, some hate it, I loved the intricacies of the ancient text, what it all meant and the imagery of the allegorical tales the images it conjured up. Fascinating

I'm glad I read it. The extremely moralising stories bored me, but the ruder and coarser stories entertained me. Funny how the men and women from the Middle Ages don't seem to avoid topics such as farting or sex. One story was taken straight out of Boccaccio, which I had already read.

One of those books I had to read in high school. Also had to memorize the opening lines of the Prologue. Hated it then, hate it now, but can't get "Whan that Avril the shores sota the drocht of Mars hath perced to the rota" out of my head. Know that I murdered the Middle English spelling. Deal with it. I'm not looking it up just to trash this book.

Chaucer writes the only poetry I have ever enjoyed reading. Some tales are shallow and rather uninteresting while others are brilliant, beautifully written, and deeply philosophical. Kind of what you would expect from a random group of people traveling together. He ends with the Parson's tale. A brief summary: "God desires no man to perish and there are many spiritual ways to the...more

Chaucer writes the only poetry I have ever enjoyed reading. Some tales are shallow and rather uninteresting while others are brilliant, beautifully written, and deeply philosophical. Kind of what you would expect from a random group of people traveling together. He ends with the Parson's tale. A brief summary: "God desires no man to perish and there are many spiritual ways to the Lord Jesus Christ and the celestial city. Of which ways, there is a full noble way called Penitence, the lamenting for sin and the will to sin no more. The root of the tree of Penitence is contrition, the branches and the leaves are confession, the fruit satisfaction, the seed grace, and the heat in that seed the Love of God."   hide

Great book. Greater still is the town of Canterbury England. Went there and loved it.

We had to read this for school my senior year, but we only read a select few of the tales - the ones that dealt with marriage, plus the Pardoner's tale. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the tales and wish that we had had time to read more of them. I liked all the contrasting views of marriage and have a lot of trouble believing that one man could've written all of these. Not a must-read, but something...more

We had to read this for school my senior year, but we only read a select few of the tales - the ones that dealt with marriage, plus the Pardoner's tale. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the tales and wish that we had had time to read more of them. I liked all the contrasting views of marriage and have a lot of trouble believing that one man could've written all of these. Not a must-read, but something I believe everyone should at least attempt to read at some point.   hide

Why oh WHY do they insist on assigning this in high school English classes? It may get the "obscure language variant" requirement out of the way, but no kid is going to be able to appreciate Chaucer's irreverent mouthiness wading through all that wretched Middle English. It took me years to recover sufficiently to even pick the book up again and then I was surprised by how much I liked it. As...more

Why oh WHY do they insist on assigning this in high school English classes? It may get the "obscure language variant" requirement out of the way, but no kid is going to be able to appreciate Chaucer's irreverent mouthiness wading through all that wretched Middle English. It took me years to recover sufficiently to even pick the book up again and then I was surprised by how much I liked it. As soon as you get past the odd spelling and weird period slang, it's actually quite readable (so long as you don't take it too seriously). : )   hide

The real inspiration for every Monty Python skit. Read it out loud to get more out of it, and don't be afraid to put a screeching halt to your progress by looking at the explications. Etymologies are a world away from cognates, so assume nothing! Would not recommend reading this at religious ceremonies, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or around anyone even remotely sexually inhibited. Speaking...more

The real inspiration for every Monty Python skit. Read it out loud to get more out of it, and don't be afraid to put a screeching halt to your progress by looking at the explications. Etymologies are a world away from cognates, so assume nothing! Would not recommend reading this at religious ceremonies, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or around anyone even remotely sexually inhibited. Speaking of "worlds away," escathological texts are a world away from scatalogical stories such as these, so be careful who you introduce this to.   hide