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stephenmeansme's review
2.0
This is one of those "great literature" books that are more important for their influences than their merit to a latter-day reader. That's not to say that I wouldn't recommend *any* of the TALES; I just wouldn't recommend the *complete* (well, extant) set to someone who wasn't prepared to make a study of it.
Prose translations of verse are useful for getting the content at the expense of the poetry (the Sinclair translation of Dante's COMMEDIA is a very good example), so I would recommend this particular translation to anyone who's curious to read a bit of Chaucer.
Beyond the famous tales, though (the Prologue, the Wife of Bath, the Miller, a few more) you get many variations on a theme (love, mostly, or piety, or pious love) and occasionally a big spike of anti-Semitism because (cf. THE PURSUIT OF THE MILLENNIUM) Jew hatred was part and parcel of European Christianity throughout the Middle Ages. Oh well.
2 stars, skip to the best parts, don't feel guilty about skipping any (or all).
Prose translations of verse are useful for getting the content at the expense of the poetry (the Sinclair translation of Dante's COMMEDIA is a very good example), so I would recommend this particular translation to anyone who's curious to read a bit of Chaucer.
Beyond the famous tales, though (the Prologue, the Wife of Bath, the Miller, a few more) you get many variations on a theme (love, mostly, or piety, or pious love) and occasionally a big spike of anti-Semitism because (cf. THE PURSUIT OF THE MILLENNIUM) Jew hatred was part and parcel of European Christianity throughout the Middle Ages. Oh well.
2 stars, skip to the best parts, don't feel guilty about skipping any (or all).
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