The Canterbury Tales Audiobook By Geoffrey Chaucer cover art

The Canterbury Tales

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The Canterbury Tales

By: Geoffrey Chaucer
Narrated by: Philip Madoc, Edward de Souza
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Chaucer's greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of "The Knight's Tale" to the joyous bawdy of the Miller's; all are told with a freshness and vigor in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

Download the accompanying reference guide.(P)1995 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd,; ©1995 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd. Classics European Poetry World Literature

Editorial reviews

The five tales (not including the Prologue) of this production include a good mix of the stately and the satirical in Chaucer's masterpiece. Classical actor Edward de Souza delivers the "Knight's Tale" with appropriate nobility, while Anthony Donovan injects levity into the bawdy "Miller's Tale." In a similar pairing of opposites, the "Merchant's Tale" and the "Franklin's Tale" present contrasting views on marriage, though it might have been nice to include one of the tales narrated by women. Nonetheless, all six narrators are sensitive to the rhythm and rhyme of the translation, and the interludes of medieval music also add a splash of flavor.
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Well translated and beautifully read. As they’ve done with some of their other titles, like the Sherlock Holmes stories, Naxos has chopped up and rearranged the Tales to fit across multiple audiobooks. I have no problem with that, but I do have a problem with the other thing they did: significantly abridge some of the selections. The Prologue, for example, omits the following characters from Chaucer with nary a note or comment: the Yeoman, the Friar, the Cleric, the Lawyer, the Cook, the Physician, the Plowman, the Manciple, and the Reeve. In other words, you’re only getting a fragment of the prologue. That’s the only reason I gave it three stars. Verse, narration, and sound quality are top notch. Why did they cripple their own presentation this way?

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