The Canterbury Tales, was originally written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the C14th. This particular edition I got is novelists Peter Ackroyd's 'retelling' of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
The overarching story or 'frame narrative' , tells the story of 31 Pilgrims on their way from London the the shrine of Sir Thomas Becket in Canterbury.
Along the way, the pseudo leader of the group suggests they conduct a competition of who can tell the best story, to pass the time. The book reads more like a collection of short stories, as the various different pilgrims put forwards their best story for the competition. In between these stories the pilgrims, chat, argue and banter along their way too Canterbury.
As you can imagine it is pretty difficult to talk about every one of the short stories, but what is definitely easy to say is that there is a huge range in topic, from rude tales to chivalric tales to tales that may just have you weeping with the pilgrims-whether that is with tears of laughter or woe- that will be up to you!
Humour and fun
My sense of humour is pretty base and childish. I have found out apparently so was the majority of medieval society. There was a handful of tales where farts and bodily humour was the centre of the story; like the monk who needed to devise a way to share out a fart among 12 different monks in the order- someone suggesting farting into a spouting wheel to spread it !
There were tales that were down right filthy, and people would still find that today- You've probably heard of the wife of Bath - I do not know how that made it onto the secondary school curriculum. She was very amusing however, listing all her husbands.
Poetry vs. Prose
As Ackroyd fairly states in his introduction to his version of this classic tale he 'writes in prose rather than poetry'. This works for him as a novelist, and it reads well for the modern reader. He chooses to modernise the spelling but keep the essence and flow of the stories the same as Chaucer's original. This 'translation' if you want to call it that, I think helps bring these classic tales to new audiences. upon researching the original Canterbury tales I have found out that that too often shifts forms as the various pilgrims tell their stories, from poetry to prose and back to verse again!
Stories and Stories
I did enjoy this read, and will likely, tackle the original work at some point. One thing that perhaps put me off was that I went into it believing it to be one linear plot rather it read like a collection of stories. I read these types of books very differently, so I had to quickly re adjust my mind to kind of tell it to take it as individual stories rather than a comprehensive and full novel.
I think the vitality in these characters telling these stories, despite it being fiction illuminates part of history we often forget or see as pretty gloomy. The 'dark ages' or the 'middle age'. We always look back and believe things were stricter or less liberal. Despite this many of the stories they told wouldn't sound out of place in any pub around England today !
Stories are what literature is about; telling them and exciting or educating your readers through imagery and wordplay. The Canterbury Tales, Ackroyds or Chaucer's edition, succinctly shows how storytelling is the very essence of being human. Telling the story is the easiest and most prolific form of how we communicate with each other . It is this reason that I think The Canterbury Tales, in all its forms has stood the test of time, because stories can't fade or go out of fashion, everyone tells them!
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