Canterbury Tales

With their astonishing diversity of tone and subject matter, The Canterbury Tales have become one of the touchstones of medieval literature. Translated here into modern English, these tales of a motley crew of pilgrims drawn from all walks of life--from knight to nun, miller to monk--reveal a picture of English life in the fourteenth century that is as robust as it is representative. Nevill Coghill's masterly and vivid modern English verse translation with all the vigor and poetry of Chaucer's fourteenth-century Middle English

A Penguin Classic In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. A story-telling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight's account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath's Arthurian legend, to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook. Rich and diverse, The Canterbury Tales offer us an unrivalled glimpse into the life and mind of medieval England.

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