Reviews

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Marcia Williams

ultimatekate's review against another edition

4.0

The first time I read this book, again, was high school. I remember reading "The Nun's Priest's Tale," and that's about it.

So when I was told it was part of my curriculum, I thought, "Oh, great!" (heavy on the sarcasm). I don't know what I was thinking! I LOVE this book! It's probably my second favorite piece of literature to teach (after "The Collector" and "Equus").

I normally cover the following:
The General Prologue: introduction to all the pilgrims. This shows how culturally aware Chaucer was: we see pilgrims of all classes, sexes, and levels of sleaziness.

The Miller's Tale: John, a carpenter, takes in a border, Nicolas. Nicolas starts hitting on John's hot young wife Alison. Eventually, Nicolas and Alison decide to sleep together, but only after telling John that a flood was coming and he needed to build them boats, and sneaking downstairs when John fell asleep. I'll stop there. Suffice it to say that the ending includes pokers, branding, Alison's "nether eye" and faring as loud as a thunderclap.

The Reeve's Tale: Simpkin, a miller, has been stealing grain from people for years, but two college students named John and Alan get fed up when he steals from their dying college dean. They show up to Simpkin's house, and get revenge, using Simpkin's wife and daughter.

The Wife of Bath's Tale: The prologue is longer than the tale, and it tells us that the Wife of Bath is a medieval feminist. The tale itself deals with a knight who has raped a woman, and to save his life, he has to find out what women want. Good stuff. (I hope my male students remember this when they get a little older...)

The Pardoner's Tale: Probably the most literary and deepest. The Pardoner preaches against greed--greed will get you to hell!!!--but he's the greediest jerkface in the tales. His story involves three young men who are looking for Death and gold. Deep, ironic stuff.

isabelawith1l's review against another edition

Was reading for class but gave up 

gbelter's review against another edition

funny lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence and Antisemitism

arunendro's review against another edition

3.0

very interesting in the context of a class, but i'm not sure that i would ever really get into this on my own

neen_bean's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

ophelia_so_sad's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

3.5

shadybanana's review against another edition

4.0

I was challenged to read the thickest book in the library and someone took out the Canterbury Tales. It was very long and I must confess that I was worried if I would be even able to finish it or not. As it turns out the book was so good that it nearly forced me to read the other book with prose style in my tbr: Beowulf. Anyway, in the edition I read there was Old English manuscript and a translated to Modern English version as well. I tried to read the Old English manuscript along with the Modern manuscript but at nearly 40% of book, I abandoned this quest and switched completely to Modern English manuscript. The best thing about the book was definitely the prose and how it was fluently carried out till the end without losing touch for a single moment. The stories and fables were so marvelously crafted within the rhymes that I was left in awe. There was a certain specialty in every tale and this made the book more interesting. Perhaps a chief contributor to the book being so good was the whole idea of a bunch of diverse people with varying nature and different occupations travelling together to the same purpose and killing boredom by telling stories. The stories were so natural that they were blissful. There were certainly deep philosophies concealed in the tales as well which I were able to thankfully extract now and then. There is, however, one objection that I have and that is that the tales all had certain obscene crude-ness. I shall not typically name those paragraphs but there was a certain roughness in that nudity which should have been better coveted. I do understand that such events can be recalled without hesitation in a company of grown up men and women but there should have been some censorship or alternatively some metaphoric description. Hence it was a 4-star book for me. Nothing more, nothing less.

niallantony's review against another edition

challenging funny reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

introverted_idiot's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

otoruga's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0