Synopses & Reviews
Begun soon after 1386 and written during several years that followed, Geoffrey Chaucer's great narrative poem The Canterbury Tales presents a richly detailed, highly entertaining, and sometimes bawdy picture of English society in the fourteenth century. Rich with humorous insights into the many foibles of humanity, this poem is considered by most literary critics and scholars to be the first great example of literary art written in vernacular English. Its narrative opens as a party of 30 men and women from various walks of life gather at the Tabard Inn in London, from where they set out on a holy pilgrimage to Canterbury and its shrine dedicated to Thomas
Review
"Builds a needed bridge for the general student between the 20th and 14th centuries."
--Kent Williams, Troy State University, AL
Review
"Readers coming to 'The Canterbury Tales' for the first time should...buy Vincent Hopper's interlinear translation...To my knowledge, Hopper's rendering is as close, as word for word, as any translation of 'The Canterbury Tales'... It places the new word directly under the original word -- a device that makes the syntax feel old-fashioned but that will also quickly teach you Middle English, which is not hard."
--Joan Acocella,The New Yorker
Synopsis
Each line of the original Middle English is followed by a line of modern English "translation." Includes biography of Chaucer, interpretive introduction.
Synopsis
Begun soon after 1386 and written during several years that followed, Geoffrey Chaucer's great narrative poem The Canterbury Tales presents a richly detailed, highly entertaining, and sometimes bawdy picture of English society in the fourteenth century. Rich with humorous insights into the many foibles of humanity, this poem is considered by most literary critics and scholars to be the first great example of literary art written in vernacular English. Its narrative opens as a party of 30 men and women from various walks of life gather at the Tabard Inn in London, from where they set out on a holy pilgrimage to Canterbury and its shrine dedicated to Thomas