Welcome!
From bawdy flirts to noble knights, from the lowest joke to the highest parable, the tales and tellers of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales bring their complex community vividly to life. In this classic work of English literature, pilgrims from all levels of medieval society make a spring journey to Canterbury. Their genial host bids tales from "each one of you to help shorten our way along this journey,” thus drawing us into a tapestry of unforgettable characters, varied narratives and interwoven layers of meaning.
For Chaucer is a true master of subtle storytelling whose experiments in perspective and genre have inspired readers and writers for centuries. Like Dante and Bocaccio, cosmopolitan Chaucer turned the local language of his people and his time into literature, and that literature into the development of a modern language. At times, we will look to the original Middle English text of the Canterbury Tales to help us appreciate the beauty of his poetry and his place in our linguistic history. But as readers of today we can still appreciate Chaucer's genius in a modern English “translation,” which is mainly what we will be reading.
The intricate artistry of Chaucer's masterpiece will assume its proper place at the center of our considerations. Gaining "meaning and delight” through close reading of selected tales, we see how the perspective of the teller shapes each tale, and how they respond one to another. Honor, marriage, morality, all are under question here as we connect the microcosm of this gathering to the macrocosm of their changing feudal world. Meanwhile the voices of the Host, and Chaucer himself, remind us that stereotypes are being both created and critiqued, while simplistic moral pieties are sometimes offered yet perhaps also undermined.
When we read and discuss these comic, touching, yet surprisingly sophisticated stories, we sharpen our capacity to grasp the interdependencies in our own society. By immersing us in this world that may at first appear quaint, Chaucer gives us new insights into those perennial questions we encounter on our own human journey.
Seminar will include brief presentations of information and images to frame discussions, along with a website of additional optional resources.
“Yet do not miss the moral, my good men.
For Saint Paul says that all that’s written well
Is written down some useful truth to tell.
Then take the wheat and let the chaff lie still.”
– The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
About us
Long-time partners in life and learning Denise Ahlquist and JJ Patton are excited to reprise their successful Chaucer seminar for Symposium learners. Both are experienced seminar leaders with degrees in English literature. Denise’s passion for stories and years of leading Shared Inquiry discussions with the Great Books Foundation are complemented by JJ’s studies in poetry and medieval English literature, equipping them to serve as your guides for a pilgrimage of the imagination.
The Selected Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, in the 2014 translation by Sheila Fisher (Norton)
The ISBN number is:
978-0-393-34178-2
Everyone is asked to carefully read all the modern English versions of the Tales in this volume. Taking a look at at least a few sections of the original Middle English is strongly encouraged, but not required. The Introduction is worth reading too.
In addition, for some tales, we will need to use the modern English-only edition by Penguin (edited /trans. by Coghill, 2003) of the Canterbury Tales to allow us to occasionally compare translations, but mainly to provide common access to a number of significant tales omitted by Fisher. List of specific tales will be provided.
The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Neville Coghill
(Penguin Classics, Revised Edition, 2003)
ISBN-13: 978-0140424386
Please be sure to obtain this edition.
In the US and the UK, try Bookshop.org
In the US and Canada, try Powell’s Books, IndieBound, and Thiftbooks (used books only in Canada)
In Canada, try McNally Robinson
Resources
Check out these related resources to enhance your journey, including a Short Guide to the pilgrims and tales. See more on the Newsletter page (click the tab at top of this page).
A Short Guide to the Pilgrims and Tales
docs.google.com/document/d/1JfDM3cHRMCZk63kHPdjLmuEf2Js9bIqDORQIxq4xZIU/edit?usp=drivesdk
Introductory information:
An interactive map of the pilgrimage route: https://mediakron.bc.edu/mappingchaucer/the-canterbury-tales-2
A basic video introduction to “Chaucer’s England” (with Pardoner’s Tale) from an old Encyclopedia Britannica film (30 minutes) on YouTube:
While we found this version of the text quite difficult to read (due to the end of line footnotes), the introduction to the online Gutenberg CT provides a good overview:
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2383/pg2383-images.html
Chaucer’s Biography
http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucerbio.htm
A useful website with many links to literary and historical information.
Audio Versions
A decent audio version in modern English is available on YouTube:
[THE CANTERBURY TALES by Geoffrey Chaucer - FULL AudioBook | Part 1 of 2 | Greatest AudioBooks. Modern English, Gutenberg.]
Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales” Reading [Middle-English] General Prologue (Lines 1-117)" on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6T1t6zfF9yU
“The Knight's Tale" read in Middle English" on YouTube: https://youtu.be/bXImcQjD-Ok
About Middle English
If you’d like some background on the history of the English language and the changes to it between Chaucer's time and our own, Wikipedia does a decent job on this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English
Or check out this talk on "Old, Middle, Modern: Chaucer as the turning-point in the story of English pronunciation" on YouTube. It’s long, but a good complete look at Old/Middle/Modern English differences: https://youtu.be/jISbgvgRTTM
And if you’d like a stab at learning Middle English yourself, try this YouTube recording that helps you take your pronunciation from slow to fast: http://youtu.be/HXMypzdWxsc
Find more on the Newsletter tab.