{"id":17,"date":"2021-01-29T14:43:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T14:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/?page_id=17"},"modified":"2024-02-15T15:36:22","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T15:36:22","slug":"the-canterbury-tales","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/chaucers-language\/the-canterbury-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"A Reader\u2019s Guide to the Canterbury Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>(detail from mural by <em>Ezra Winter, 1939. <\/em><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/2007687162\/\"><em><em>Library of Congress Washington, D.C<\/em><\/em>.<\/a><em>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Derek Pearsall&#8217;s <em>The Canterbury Tales <\/em>(1985) is a rare resource of particular use for readers new to Chaucer. Pearsall was an equally prominent Chaucerian of the 20<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0century, and this book distills decades of thought into a neatly modular literary analysis of Chaucer\u2019s most ambitious work. Its first two chapters provide a very readable account of issues that Chaucer scholars usually talk about only among themselves (in what form and how did Chaucer\u2019s great poem survive, and what does this physical evidence tell us about Chaucer\u2019s intentions). In the accounts of individual tales, Pearsall\u2019s wit distills key principles of each of the <em>Tales <\/em>into memorable observations. A literary critic above all things, Pearsall does not let Chaucer off easily when he seems to nod yet also teases out just what makes the best of his writing so very good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">The first two chapters of  <em>The Canterbury Tales<\/em> provide an account of the forms and means by which Chaucer\u2019s great poem survives, asking, in particular: what does the physical evidence of the medieval manuscripts in which Chaucer\u2019s poetry survives tell us about his intentions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">The remaining chapters cover key principles of each of the <em>Tales<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-left\" id=\"access-a-searchable-version-of-pearsall-s-book\">Access <a href=\"https:\/\/acrobat.adobe.com\/link\/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:4b93fc5c-e8b6-3188-b3da-3588898090b7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pearsall&#8217;s book <\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(detail from mural by Ezra Winter, 1939. Library of Congress Washington, D.C.) Derek Pearsall&#8217;s The Canterbury Tales (1985) is a rare resource of particular use for readers new to Chaucer. Pearsall was an equally prominent Chaucerian of the 20th\u00a0century, and this book distills decades of thought into a neatly modular literary analysis of Chaucer\u2019s most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":1446,"parent":1034,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/sidebar-left.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2152,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions\/2152"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.krieger.jhu.edu\/chaucer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}