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The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling

2009 • 436 pages

Ratings3

Average rating4

15

I loved reading the Canterbury Tales in Middle English in high school, but we only read the Prologue and a few of the tales, given time constraints and the difficulty of the sort-of-different language. I decided to read Ackroyd's modern prose translation as a quicker, easier way to read the rest of the tales. I enjoyed diving back into Chaucer's sarcasm and social commentary (although I was put off by the heavy doses of misogyny and antisemitism in many of the tales). But I found the prose translation disappointing. Part of the joy of Chaucer is the language, and although this felt more casual and less stilted than a modern poetry translation it still match up to the charm of the original.

December 11, 2016