Selected Canterbury Tales for Students

Written between 1387 and 1400, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is set on a journey made by thirty-one pilgrims (including Chaucer and the host, Harry Bailey) as they travel from Southwark in London to Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury. There, in return for the prize of a free dinner, the pilgrims all agreed to participate in a story-telling contest to help make their long journey more enjoyable. This volume contains three of Chaucer's most popular tales; the General Prologue, the Pardoner's Tale and the Wife of Bath's Tale. The modern translation contained in this book is presented in an interlinear style - the chief advantage being that it tends to produce a literal, word-for-word translation. Here, readers can check the meaning of unfamiliar words immediately - thereby making this version particularly suitable for students who are new to Middle English. Since this edition has been designed to meet the needs of beginners, an explanatory word or phrase has occasionally been added to the original text, where needed. However, these additions are clearly identifiable by being contained in square brackets [ ]. One further departure from Chaucer's text is that all offensive references to female genitalia have been translated into much more acceptable language. Although many modern translations of the Canterbury Tales retain Chaucer's iambic pentameter and rhyming couplet structure, some do so only by transferring content from neighbouring lines, or by inserting substitute words which modify its original meaning. The present word-for-word translation expressly avoids those difficulties, but this has an unavoidable impact on the translated text. Clearly, some lines rhyme, whilst others do not. Nevertheless, there are sound reasons why accuracy was chosen to take precedence over poetic style. The reader is reminded that Chaucer wrote before the Great Vowel Shift of 1400 to 1600. In this regard, subsequent changes in pronunciation meant the Canterbury Tales had already begun to lose some of its poetic resonance soon after it was written. Furthermore, since large swathes of Chaucer's writing require very little modernization, the majority of rhyming couplets have remained largely intact. Indeed, the present translation of those lines is very similar to that found in other works. The internal design of this book includes wide margins for making personal notes and a larger font than is usually found in texts of this kind. Indeed, since it contains the complete and unabridged text (with line numbers), an accurate translation and a personal study notebook, this book represents excellent value for money. This translation is also available in a side-by-side format: ISBN 978-1986023931 The translator was educated in England at St Chad's College Durham, Warwick, Exeter and De Montfort universities. Lately, he was a Hardwicke and a Sir Thomas More scholar of Lincoln's Inn, London. His publications include works on English law and literature.