Is The Canterbury Tales Hard To Read?

Canterbury Tales, Pocket Books, prose translation by R. M. Lumiansky, is easy to read, but while this prose format adheres to the storyline, it is only a shadow of the poetic Chaucer. It might prove useful if you are not comfortable with poetry. Good luck. Reading Chaucer is really worth the extra effort.

Are The Canterbury Tales difficult to read?

The Canterbury Tales are in Middle English. We’re not going to lie to you – Middle English is really hard to read. At first. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of studying pronunciation guides and glossaries and reading aloud to get it.

What reading level is The Canterbury Tales?

The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems

Interest Level Grade 7 – Grade 12
Reading Level Grade 10
Genre Young Adult
Publisher Lerner Publishing Group
Brand First Avenue Classics ™

How long does it take to read The Canterbury Tales?

The average reader will spend 10 hours and 24 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).

Is The Canterbury Tales worth reading?

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Originally published in 1390, this is definitely one of the most vintage books on this list. While the language is dated (and has to be translated from Old English to a more modern form of English) the storytelling convention is still remarkable.

What age read Canterbury Tales?

10 years and up
Product information

Publisher ‎Puffin Books; Reprint edition (August 1, 1997)
ISBN-13 ‎978-0140380538
Reading age 10 years and up
Lexile measure ‎500L
Grade level ‎5 – 6

What do I need to know before reading The Canterbury Tales?

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: Four Tips for Approaching a Medieval Masterpiece

  • Read the work in its original Middle English.
  • Develop an understanding of 14th-century English language and culture.
  • Understand the place of source texts and analogs.

Is The Canterbury Tales a banned book?

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (1476)
Written at the end of the 14th century, Chaucer’s collection of stories in Middle English has been banned, challenged and censored for centuries.

What type of English is The Canterbury Tales written in?

Middle English
Written in Middle English, the story follows a group of pilgrims who are travelling the long journey from London to Canterbury Cathedral.

Is The Canterbury Tales Middle Ages?

The Canterbury Tales (written c. 1388-1400 CE) is a medieval literary work by the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (l. c. 1343-1400 CE) comprised of 24 tales related to a number of literary genres and touching on subjects ranging from fate to God’s will to love, marriage, pride, and death.

What is the shortest story in Canterbury Tales?

The shortest story in the collection is Physician’s Tale, which only consists of more or less two thousand words. Physician’s Tale narrates the story of Virginia who consents to her own death, asking her father Virginius to kill her before the villain Apius can take her virginity.

Are The Canterbury Tales funny?

One notable aspect of The Canterbury Tale is how humorous it can be. The deeply satirical text makes an abundance of jokes and sarcastic comments about the characters and situations.

Which Canterbury tale is the best?

Perhaps the most famous – and best-loved – of all of the tales in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ‘The Miller’s Tale‘ is told as a comic corrective following the sonorous seriousness of the Knight’s tale.

Why was The Canterbury Tales banned?

by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales was once banned in the United States by the U.S. Postal Service. It refused to mail copies under the Comstock Act of 1873, stating that the work contained obscene, filthy and inappropriate material.

Why should students read The Canterbury Tales?

The Canterbury Tales celebrates the art of storytelling.
Each narrator’s personality makes its way into the story he or she chooses to tell. Likewise, the stories we choose to tell and how we tell them speaks volumes about us.

What is the main message of Canterbury Tales?

One of the main lessons throughout all of the tales and main story is that honor and honesty is valued. In stories like the Physician’s Tale, we see that the lying Appius who lusts after a young girl, is eventually caught for his lies and thrown in jail where he kills himself.

How old should you be to read the Odyssey?

I would reccomend having some myth knowledge or having some sort of myth dictionary while reading it. (Try Mythica for a myth encyclopedia) I would say gifted kids could read it at 12. I read it at 13 for the first time. Reassure them that it’s okay if they don’t get everything the book has to offer.

How old should you be to read Shakespeare?

As a general rule, stick to the comedies for older elementary age and save the histories/tragedies for middle/high school. I began introducing my own kids to Shakespeare around ages eight or nine, depending on their own readiness and emotional maturity.

Is The Canterbury Tales a romance?

In The Canterbury Tales, the Knight’s Tale incorporates romantic elements in an ancient classical setting, which is a somewhat unusual time and place to set a romance.

What is the problem in The Canterbury Tales?

Major conflict The struggles between characters, manifested in the links between tales, mostly involve clashes between social classes, differing tastes, and competing professions. There are also clashes between the sexes, and there is resistance to the Host’s somewhat tyrannical leadership.

How many stories are actually told in Canterbury Tales?

24
Taken together, the tales offer a fascinating insight into English life during the late 14th century. Chaucer’s original plan was for over 100 stories, but only 24 were completed, some of which had already been written for earlier works.