The Canterbury Tales (original-spelling Middle English edition) (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Geoffrey Chaucer (Author), Jill Mann (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2005

At the Tabard Inn in Southwark, a jovial group of pilgrims assembles, including an unscrupulous Pardoner, a noble-minded Knight, a ribald Miller, the lusty Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself. As they set out on their journey towards the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury, each character agrees to tell a tale. The twenty-four tales that follow are by turns learned, fantastic, pious, melancholy and lewd, and together offer an unrivalled glimpse into the mind and spirit of medieval England.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born in London to a wine merchant, Geoffrey Chaucer (c1340-1400) became a royal servant and travelled as a diplomat to France, Spain and Italy. As well as being famed for his translations, his own work includes Troilus and Criseyde, The Book of the Duchess and The Legend of Good Women. Jill Mann has been Professor Medieval & Renaissance English at Cambridge University, and most recently Notre Dame Professor of English. She is the author Feminizing Chaucer (2002), and co-editor (with Piero Boitani) of The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer (2nd edn. 2003). Jill Mann has been Professor Medieval & Renaissance English at Cambridge University, and most recently she was Notre Dame Professor of English. She is the author Feminizing Chaucer (2002), and co-editor (with Piero Boitani) of The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer (2nd edn. 2003).

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 1328 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (August 30, 2005)
• Language: Middle English
• ISBN-10: 014042234X
• ISBN-13: 978-0140422344
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Literature & Fiction > Poetry

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth its weight in gold, May 29, 2006

By 

Jordan M. Poss (Georgia, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Canterbury Tales (original-spelling Middle English edition) (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

I bought this Penguin Classics edition of Chaucer last year during a visit to Canterbury. I already owned the modernized edition edited by the late Nevill Coghill, but I figured: Hey, I'm in Canterbury--I have to buy a copy. So I bought this one.
For starters, this is the complete text of the Tales, and it is in the original Middle English. While the language may take a while to get used to (for beginners, especially) it's a blast to read. Another plus for this edition is the heavy, heavy glossing and a really extensive notes section which helped even an experienced reader of Chaucer like myself.
If you're new to Chaucer, or even if you're not, this is the edition to have. It's a paperback, so it's portable, and it's complete. You won't be left wanting an odd tale or two with this book.
Highly recommended.

59 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great inexpensive complete edition of Chaucer, October 23, 2006

By 

Arthad - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Canterbury Tales (original-spelling Middle English edition) (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (Original-Spelling Edition). Edited by Jill Mann. Penguin Classics, 2005. ISBN 014042234X.

The Canterbury Tales itself needs no review, as Chaucer is universally acknowledged to be the greatest English poet after Shakespeare and Milton. As Chaucer's Prologue explains, the Tales are stories told by pilgrims en route to Canterbury. They range from tales of courtly love to bawdy farce to fable. Chaucer is a storyteller, and it might surprise some modern people just how entertaining a seven-hundred-year-old collection of stories might be.

Unfortunately, the English language has changed since Chaucer's time, making it difficult for modern English readers to enjoy the Canterbury Tales without a bit of work. Chaucer wrote in a dialect of Middle English (ME) which is a direct ancestor of Present Day English (PDE). This relationship makes Chaucer much easier to read than other dialects of ME further removed from PDE, such as that in which the Gawain poet wrote. Chaucer's vocabulary, consisting mainly of words derived from French and Old English, is also easier than the Gawain poet's. With a little concentration, the modern reader will probably find many ME words that looked unintelligible are actually similar to PDE words. (This edition includes a note on "Chaucer's Language" which explains Middle English grammar well, but due to its use of grammatical terminology, it will be helpful only to those who already know what such things as pluperfect and genitive singular mean.) Getting used to Middle English will take time, but it's worth it.

Now for this particular edition. I found it well edited, with glosses at the bottom of each page and detailed endnotes, which occupy about a third of the volume. Very rarely did I have a question that Mann did not address in one place or the other. There is a 140-page glossary which includes (I think) all words glossed. Archaic characters such as thorn are replaced with their modern equivalents; otherwise spelling is unchanged. My only complaint is its bulkiness: at 1254 pages, it's quite fat.

Here's a sample of the Canterbury Tales as edited by Mann:


Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duc that highte Theseus. 860
Of Atthenes he was lord and governour,
And in his time swich a conqueror
That gretter was ther noon under the sonne.
Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne,
What with his wisdom and his chivalrye. 865

859 Whilom: once upon a time 860 highte: was called


Here's my prose modernization:Long ago, as old stories tell us, there was a duke that was called Theseus. He was the lord and governor of Athens, and such a conqueror that there was none greater under the sun. He had won many a rich country with his wisdom and chivalry.

Now Chaucer can be more complicated than this, but Mann's glosses almost always make him intelligible to the enterprising reader. Many words are very similar to their modern equivalents: "tellen" = "tell," "ther" = "there," "swich" = "such." The French influence is obvious in such words as "riche" and "duc."

As you can see, glosses are identifiable by line numbers at the bottom of the page, but they are not set off in the text. Line numbers correspond, I believe, to the standard lineation of the Tales.

At about twelve dollars on Amazon, this edition is a bargain. It's complete and cheap. I highly recommend it to those who want to read the actual words that Chaucer wrote.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect edition, February 25, 2007

By 

ced - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Canterbury Tales (original-spelling Middle English edition) (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is an unbelievably great edition of The Canterbury Tales. All I wanted was the original, complete version with definitions for archaic words. But the Penguin Classics edition was all I could find, so I got it. It comes with over 500 pages of extras!!! Super-detailed notes, a great glossary, and lots on Chaucer, his times, literary genres, etc., etc. Multiple interpretations are given for parts scholars don't agree on. I can't believe I paid $80 for the Riverside Chaucer in college! ...which I later sold back for much less. This edition blew me away, and it's relatively cheap.

If you haven't read Chaucer and want to read him in old English, it's tough at first, but it gets easier with practice. There are long tales, short tales, noble tales, bawdy tales, etc. If you just want to read a few, there are cheaper paperbacks with just a few. If you want the complete tales but not the essays and things, they exist, but they're more expensive than this edition!