The Canterbury Tales in Modern Verse (Hackett Classics)

I'm not an English major, or into great literature. I just like to read good books. As part of my search for a good read, I stumbled across this translation of Chaucer, and it caught my interest. I'm glad it did. I found this translation of Chaucer simply fantastic. This translation is different in that it doesn't constrain itself to using the same number of syllables per line as the original. So instead of forcing things, it used a more modern form that is really fun to read. English has changed, and we don't pronounce words the same any more, and this translation realizes that, and so produces something that is probably closer to the original intent. Sure, reading the original, or a totally "faithful" translation might seem to be more "pure" to hard core literary folks, but this translation in many ways is more pure to the original spirit of the work. I would imagine that the contemporaries of Chaucer could enjoy the original as much as I enjoyed this translation. And it didn't take lots of effort to read - it was just fun. So, if you were exposed to Chaucer in high school or college, and just never got it, or hated trying to make sense of the original or translations that tried to follow the original meter exactly, then I think you should re-visit Chaucer with this great translation. Congratulations to Joseph Glaser for this bold translation that makes Chaucer accessible to the modern reader.

I'm not one of the literati. Shakespeare always leaves me scratching my head, but I do enjoy Walter Scott. This book, on the other hand, is totally understandable, witty, and fun. I read parts of it several times, not because I didn't understand it the first time, because it is entertaining. I'm almost to the end now. I love it and will read parts of it again and again because it's fun. I will read parts of it to my grandchild some day. I will leave other parts for her to read when she is an adult. It's very racy and even crude in parts. I borrowed a more conventional translation from a friend, and I couldn't get through three pages of that.

It is very accessible and easy to understand. The meanings are clear and there is some explanation of cultural norms of the times. Mostly, you could get this book for the hilarity of the stories. Funny is funny, raunchy is raunchy, and it is good to know that being able to laugh at the human condition is important in whatever century one may find oneself in. The stories are the experiences of many very different folk, text they all fit together gently as a whole. If you are too delicate or young to read about special relationships, there is a great deal of value, worth, and interest in the purely spiritual anecdotes and learned information.

For a study group I’m in.

It is such a delight to read the Tales and not have to be translating and reading -- this translation is true to the original work in terms of how the stories are told (the language will offend the easily offended and the politically correct), and it really is quite funny. It seems so strange to be reading this classic 50 years after I had to read it as an undergraduate -- I think I will give it to my grand nephew for his 16th birthday -- he will love it and get a leg up on his school work.

I am investigating whether this translator put too much of his own culture in this translation because of offensive words used on several pages. I don't remember this type of language being used in other translations I have read so I am in process of comparing. My recommendation is if someone wants one more true to Chaucer's work to choose another translation.

I've read several translations (modernizations) of The Canterbury Tales, and this the the most beautiful. There are prose translations that might be clearer, in a few places, and there are line-by-line, word-for-word translations that might be better for a student looking for help with reading the original, but this is my overall favorite.

This modern translation captures the experience of hearing Chaucers tałes first-hand. This translation is not like those bookish renditions that are correct yet dry. Instead, it's a visit with pilgrims making the trek from Lambeth to London. Their stories are baudy and funny. Those feelings come across in "Canterbury Tałes in Modern Verse."

Joseph Glaser's translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is wonderfully readable and entertaining. His translation makes the work easily accessible to modern readers providing a poetic rhythm and rhyme that hints of Chaucer's own poetry. The Tales themselves range from the devout to the vulgarly humorous. Most delightful are the characters brought to life within the Tales.

This translation "translates" well the vitality of Chaucer's original. I recommend the book highly. By acknowledging and adjusting for the language changes that have shortened syllables, Joseph Glaser writes for now, and, I hope, reels in new converts to Chaucer. I used this text for a general education class for sophomores, avoiding the "sigh....do we have to read this" reaction non-English-majors can telegraph. At the same time, in the introduction, Glaser gives just enough explanation to give honor to the famous opening long and uber-complex sentence of the Prologue (lovingly memorized by most professors and many former students). I'm teaching American students in an overseas study program in Cambridge, England. One student, looking at a Chaucer manuscript with a group in a Cambridge library, spoke with a staff person nearby who spontaneously began familiarly, "Whan that Aprill......" Once my students were familiar with several tales and had Glaser's iambic tetrameter with rhymed couplets in their heads (with the same immediacy feel as "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," btw), I assigned each to describe another student colleague in the style and in imitation of Chaucer, including a gentle personal barb or Chaucerian jab in a 12 line descriptive effort. Joyful results. It's an irony worthy of a Chaucerian wink and chuckle that, while I'm less than 3 miles from the famous mill in Trumpington, not far from Cambridge (Reeve's Tale), I had to use amazon.co.uk and wait through backordering delays to buy enough class books for California students, who would enjoy the labors of a work composed/translated by a professor from Kentucky and made available through American distributors of OUP. I recommend turning off the tv sometime and reading favorite chosen parts aloud to someone else, young or old.

I had always wanted to read the Canterbury Tales in understandable English. It is fascinating to know how story-telling in English began. At the same time it is shocking to read some of the crude elements that those old stories contained.

Good translation. Easy to Sing along when you get into your stride. Print a bit small. Can’t read it other than in daylight

Very readable translation into modern verse. For those of us who aren't Middle English scholars.