Penguin Random House Secondary Education
Elementary Secondary Higher Ed

Secondary Education Inspire Teaching and Learning with Outstanding Books


Guides

Collections

News
(0)
Wish List
(0)
Wish List
  • Secondary Education

    Inspire Teaching and Learning with Outstanding Books

    • English Language Arts
        • English Language Arts
        • Genre: Fiction
        • Genre: Nonfiction
        • Genre: Drama
        • Genre: Poetry
        • Genre: Literary Criticism
        •  
        • Literature: American
        • Literature: British & Commonwealth
        • Literature: Comparative & World
        •  
        • Communication
        • Writing & Composition
        • ESL / ELL

        • Browse All Subjects and Topics
    • Social Studies & History
        • Social Studies
        • Anthropology
        • Civics & Government
        • Economics, Business, and Finance
        • Geography
        • Philosophy & Ethics
        • Psychology
        • Sociology
        • History
        • European History
        • Historiography
        • Topical History
        • United States History
        • Wars, Conflicts, and Events
        • World History

        • Browse All Subjects and Topics
    • STEAM / STEM
        • Science
        • Applied Sciences
        • Astronomy
        • Biology & Life Sciences
        • Earth Science
        • Engineering
        • Environmental Science & Issues
        • Essays
        • Experiments, Projects, and Makerspace
        • History of Science
        • Physical Science
        • References
        • Research & Methodology
        • Scientists, Inventors, & Discoveries
        • The Arts
        • Architecture
        • Art
        • Fashion
        • Media Studies
        • Music
        • Performing Arts
        • Math
        • Algebra
        • Arithmetic
        • Calculus
        • Geometry
        • Precalculus
        • Probability & Statistics
        • Quantitative Reasoning
        • More Math…
        • Computer & IT
        • Artificial Intelligence
        • Coding & Programming
        • Computer Education
        • Computer Science Principles
        • Cyber Security
        • Design & User Experience (UX)
        • Entertainment & Games
        • Ethics
        • History of IT
        • Internet / The Web
        • Networking
        • Operating Systems
        • Software Manuals
        • More Computers & IT…

        • Browse All Subjects and Topics
    • Books in Spanish & World Languages
        • Books in Spanish & World Languages
        • Books in Spanish
        • World Languages

        • Browse All Subjects and Topics
    • Study Aids & Exam Prep
        • Study Aids & Exam Prep
        • College Entrance Exams
        • High School Exams

        • Browse All Subjects and Topics
    • More Disciplines
        • Health, Sports, Games, and Crafts
        • Cooking & Nutrition
        • Crafts & Makerspace
        • Games & Activities
        • Health & Wellness
        • Physical Education
        • Religious Studies & Spirituality
        • Agnostic & Atheist
        • Buddhism
        • Christianity
        • Comparative Religion
        • Confucianism
        • Hindu
        • Islam
        • Judaism
        • Notable People in Religious Studies & Spirituality
        • Taoism
        • Visionary & Metaphysical
        • Education & Professional Learning
        • Child and Adolescent Development
        • Classroom Management
        • Counseling
        • Pedagogy & Methodology
        • Schools and Education
        • Special Education
        • References
        • Almanacs
        • Atlases, Gazetteers, and Maps
        • Bibliographies & Indexes
        • Dictionaries
        • Encyclopedias
        • Research Materials
        • Style Manuals
        • Thesauruses
        • Word Lists
        • Writing Skills

          • Browse All Subjects and Topics
    • Guides
    • Collections
    • News
    • Other Penguin Random House Education Sites
    • Elementary Ed
    • Higher Ed
Are you still there?
If not, we’ll close this session in:
Download high-resolution image Look inside

The Canterbury Tales

Part of Modern Library Classics

Author Geoffrey Chaucer
Introduction by John Miles Foley
Translated by Burton Raffel
Look inside
Paperback
$17.00 US
Random House Group | Modern Library
5.23"W x 7.96"H x 1.47"D  
On sale Nov 10, 2009 | 672 Pages | 978-0-8129-7845-2
| Grades 9-12 + AP/IB
Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies
See Additional Formats
  • English Language Arts > Genre: Fiction > Humor & Satire > Satire & Parodies
  • English Language Arts > Genre: Fiction > People & Places by Region > Europe
  • English Language Arts > Genre: Poetry > British and Commonwealth
  • English Language Arts > Literature: British & Commonwealth > Pre-20th Century
  • History > European History > England, Ireland, and the United Kingdom (U.K.) > Medieval
  • About
  • Author
  • Excerpt
  • Praise
Beyond its importance as a literary work of unvarnished genius, Geoffrey Chaucer’ s unfinished epic poem is also one of the most beloved works in the English language–and for good reason: It is lively, absorbing, perceptive, and outrageously funny. But despite the brilliance of Chaucer’s work, the continual evolution of our language has rendered his words unfamiliar to many of us. Esteemed poet, translator, and scholar Burton Raffel’s magnificent new unabridged translation brings Chaucer’s poetry back to life, ensuring that none of the original’s wit, wisdom, or humanity is lost to the modern reader. This Modern Library edition also features an Introduction by the widely influential medievalist and author John Miles Foley that discusses Chaucer’ s work as well as his life and times.

“A delight . . . [Raffel’s translation] provides more opportunities to savor the counterpoint of Chaucer’s earthy humor against passages of piercingly beautiful lyric poetry.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Masterly . . . This new translation beckons us to make our own pilgrimage back to the very wellsprings of literature in our language.” —Billy Collins

“The Canterbury Tales has remained popular for seven centuries. It is the most approachable masterpiece of the medieval world, and Mr. Raffel’s translation makes the stories even more inviting.”—Wall Street Journal
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400), often referred to as “the grandfather of English literature,” is invariably ranked with Shakespeare and Milton as one of the three greatest poets of the English language. His masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, has been a touchstone for English-language poetry for more than half a millennium and is one of the most widely read works in the Western canon. View titles by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Knight’s Tale

1

Introduction

1 The Knight’s Tale, which mostly takes place in ancient Athens, is the conflicted love story of two royal Theban cousins who love the same woman. Because “The Knight’s Tale” is by far the longest and most complex of the Canterbury Tales presented in this volume, a quick summary of the action of the four parts of the tale may help readers encountering it for the first time:

Part I. On his way back to Athens with his bride, Hypolita, and his sister-in-law, Emily, Duke Theseus responds to the pleas of some grieving widows by defeating Creon, the tyrant of Thebes. Among the bodies of the defeated army, he finds near death the royal cousins Palamon and Arcite. Rather than kill them, Theseus takes them back to Athens and places them in prison. From their barred prison window, the two young men see the lovely Emily and both fall in love with her. Arcite after a time is released but banished from Athens on pain of death, while Palamon remains in prison. The two are envious of each other’s condition.

Part II. Arcite disguises himself as a common laborer and comes back to Athens, where he gets a job working in Emily’s household. Meanwhile, Palamon escapes from prison, and the rival cousins chance to meet in a grove near Athens. While Palamon and Arcite are fighting a bloody duel, Theseus, Hypolita, and Emily, out hunting, by chance come upon them in a grove. At first angry, Theseus soon relents, sets both of his enemies free, and invites them to return in a year, each with a hundred knights, to take part in a glorious tournament, with Emily’s hand going to the winner.

Part III. Theseus builds a splendid amphitheater in preparation for the tournament and places on its west, east, and north borders elaborately decorated temples to Mars, Venus, and Diana. When the two troops of warriors come back for the tournament, the three principals each pray to one of the planetary deities. Palamon prays to Venus, not for victory but for the hand of Emily. Emily prays to Diana to be spared marriage to either Palamon or Arcite, praying instead to remain a maiden always. Arcite prays to Mars for victory in the tournament.

Part IV. Just before the tournament begins Theseus declares that he wants no lives to be lost and restricts the kinds of weapons that may be used. He sets out the rules of the game, the primary one being that the winning side will be the one that takes the loser to a stake at the end of the field. After vigorous fighting, Arcite’s men drag the wounded Palamon to the stake. No sooner is Arcite declared the winner than Saturn commands Pluto, god of the underworld, to send a diabolical fury to frighten Arcite’s horse. Arcite is thrown and crushed by his own saddle bow. After an elaborate funeral and the passage of some years, Theseus tells Palamon and Emily to marry, and they happily do so.





Arching over the story of the warriors and lovers down on the earth below is a heavenly conflict among the gods or, more precisely, among the planetary or astrological influences that were thought to control the affairs of men. Indeed, a key feature of “The Knight’s Tale” is the prayers of the three principal characters to these influences. Closely tied up with the question of whether Palamon or Arcite will get the young woman they both love is the question of how the powerful Saturn will settle the conflicting demands on him of Mars, Venus, and Diana.

Chaucer’s main source for “The Knight’s Tale” is Giovanni Boccaccio’s several-hundred-page-long Teseida. Readers who are upset at having to read Chaucer’s long and leisurely story of Palamon, Arcite, and Emily should thank Chaucer for streamlining a story that is less than a quarter the length of Boccaccio’s Italian story of Palemone, Arcita, and Emilia. Chaucer reduced the story in lots of ways, particularly by staying focused on the love story. He cut out, for example, Boccaccio’s long opening description of Theseus’s journey to the land of the Amazons, his defeat of them, and his acquiring as his bride the Amazonian queen Hypolita. But Chaucer did more than reduce the Teseida, which focuses on Arcite as the main character, who in Boccaccio is almost a tragic figure who makes the mistake of praying to the wrong deity. For Chaucer, Palamon is raised to equal importance, if not more importance, than his rival. And Chaucer transforms the vain and coquettish Emilia of his source into a more innocent object of the love of rival cousins.

One of Chaucer’s most important changes was to give the story a philosophical overlay by introducing into it the ideas of the ancient philosopher Boethius. One of Boethius’s key ideas was that there is a great God who designs a far better plan for human beings than they could possibly design for themselves. That design sometimes involves what looks like adversity, but the adversity is always (for Boethius) part of a design that leads to happiness. We should then, according to Boethius, not resist or fight against the troubles that come our way, but cheerfully accept them, trusting that in the end things will work out for the best. The ending of “The Knight’s Tale,” then, reflects this reassuring philosophy by showing that although the three principal characters all seem at first not to get what they want most, in the end all of them do get what they want, or perhaps something even better.

For this and the other tales in this volume, readers should reread the portrait of the teller given by Chaucer in the General Prologue. The portrait of the Knight (lines 43–78) shows him to be the idealized Christian soldier who fought with valor and honor at most of the important late-fourteenth-century battles against heathens. We know less of his marital than of his martial life, but he does have a son who is with him on this pilgrimage. The Knight seems, all in all, an ideal teller for the long tale of war, romance, honor, and philosophy that Chaucer assigns to him.

Notes

Part I

Femenye (line 8). A race of warlike women, led by Hypolita, who decided that they could live and protect themselves without the help of men. They are sometimes called Amazons, their land Scithia.

Saturne, Juno (470–71). Two forces that Palamon blames for the setbacks that Thebes has suffered. Saturn is the powerful planet. Juno is the jealous wife of Jupiter, who had made love to two Theban women.

Part II

Hereos (516). Eros, a sickness associated with the intense emotion of falling in love.

manye (516). A kind of melancholy madness or mania brought on by the frustration of his love for an inaccessible woman.

Argus (532). In classical mythology, the jealous Juno had set the hundred-eyed Argus as guard to Io, who was a lover of her husband, Jupiter. Argus was killed by Mercury (see line 527), who first sang all of Argus’s hundred eyes to sleep.

Cadme and Amphioun (688). Cadmus and Amphion are the legendary founders of the city of Thebes, home to Palamon and Arcite.

regne of Trace (780). The reference in this and the next lines is to the Thracian kingdom in which a hunter prepares himself at a mountain pass to meet a charging lion or bear.

Part III

Citheroun (1078). Venus’s supposed mountainous island of Cytherea, though Chaucer may have confused the name with the name of a different location.

Ydelnesse, Salamon, Hercules, Medea, Circes, Turnus, Cresus (1082–88). Various literary, historical, and classical allusions, most of them demonstrating the follies and miseries associated with the snares of love.

qualm (1156). Probably a reference to the “pestilence” or bubonic plague that killed millions in Europe during Chaucer’s lifetime. See also line 1611 below, where Saturn claims to have the power to send the plague. The reference to the bubonic plague here is anachronistic, since “The Knight’s Tale” is set in the classical pre-Christian era.

Julius, Nero, Antonius (1173–74). Three famous rulers slaughtered in time of war—exemplary of the mayhem and death caused by mighty Mars. The last is Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla, a Roman emperor murdered in AD 217.

Puella, Rubeus (1187). Two astrological references to Mars as cast by a complicated process called geomancy, a pseudoscience involving dots and lines.

Calistopee, Dane, Attheon, Atthalante, Meleagre (1198– 1213). Various classical and legendary allusions to hunters or the hunted whose unfortunate tales are depicted on the walls of the temple of Diana, goddess of the hunt.

griffon (1275). A griffin was in Greek mythology a fearsome beast with the head and wings of an eagle on the body of a lion.

in hir houre (1359). Palamon picks his hour of prayer carefully. The various planets were supposed to have special powers on certain hours of the day, hours in which it was particularly propitious to make prayers for their astrological influence. Venus would have had special strength on the twenty-third hour of Sunday night (see line 1351), when it was not yet two hours before dawn on Monday morning (line 1352).

the thridde houre inequal (1413). The medieval astrological day was divided into twenty-four “inequal” or planetary hours. In this system the time between dawn and dusk was divided equally into twelve hours, the time between dusk and the following dawn into twelve more. Except at the two equinoxes, when the daylight hours would have been exactly equal in length to the nighttime hours (that is, sixty minutes), the daylight hours would have been longer or shorter than the hours of darkness, depending on the time of the year—thus the inequality. Emily prays to Diana on the third inequal hour after Palamon prayed to Venus. That would have been the first hour of Monday (“moon day”), or the dawn hour, the hour at which Diana’s power would have been the greatest. Like Palamon, Emily picks her prayer time very carefully.

Stace of Thebes (1436). The Thebaid of Statius, though Chaucer’s more direct source was actually Boccaccio’s Teseida, which he does not mention by name here or elsewhere. Chaucer was often eager to claim an ancient source, not a contemporary one.

Attheon (1445). While hunting, Acteon accidentally saw Diana while she was bathing. In her anger she changed him into a stag, which Acteon’s hunting dogs then killed, not realizing that they were killing their master. See lines 1207–10 above, where Acteon’s unhappy story is artistically summarized on the walls of Diana’s temple.

thre formes (1455). As suggested in lines 1439–42 above, the goddess was imagined to have appeared in various forms. The three referred to here are probably Luna, the moon (in the heavens), the chaste Diana, the huntress (on earth), and Proserpina, the reluctant wife of Pluto (in the underworld).

the nexte houre of Mars (1509). Mars’s next hour, the hour that Arcite would have selected for his prayer to Mars, would have been the fourth hour of that Monday.

Part IV

al that Monday (1628). Monday is given over to partying and celebrations so that the tournament itself takes place the next day, on a Tuesday, or Mars’s day (“Mardi” in French). Since Tuesday is the day when the influence of Mars is strongest, it would not have surprised a medieval audience that Arcite, who had prayed to Mars, wins the tournament.

Galgopheye (1768). Probably a valley in another part of Greece, perhaps Gargaphia.

Belmarye (1772). Probably Benmarin in Morocco but, like the previous name, perhaps just meant to be an exotic place where wild animals were rampant and dangerous.

furie infernal (1826). A fury was an avenging spirit usually confined to the underworld but released from time to time to influence the affairs of men, sometimes to see that justice was done.

vertu expulsif (1891). This “virtue” involved the ability to expel certain harmful poisons from the body. This complex account of the mechanics of Arcite’s dying, the technical details of which are not important here, shows Chaucer’s awareness of the medical terminology of his day.

Firste Moevere (2129). This First Mover who creates the links in the great “chain of love,” though later in the passage identified as Jupiter, may perhaps be read as an anachronistic stand-in for the Judeo-Christian godhead, the all- loving deity who stands above and beyond the planetary gods and goddesses that seem to control the fates of men. This prime mover determines the number of years indi- vidual men and women get to live on earth and arranges things better for them than they could arrange them for themselves.
Copyright © 2006 by Geoffrey Chaucer. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
“A delight . . . [Raffel’s translation] provides more opportunities to savor the counterpoint of Chaucer’s earthy humor against passages of piercingly beautiful lyric poetry.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Masterly . . . This new translation beckons us to make our own pilgrimage back to the very wellsprings of literature in our language.” —Billy Collins

“The Canterbury Tales has remained popular for seven centuries. It is the most approachable masterpiece of the medieval world, and Mr. Raffel’s translation makes the stories even more inviting.”—Wall Street Journal

About

Beyond its importance as a literary work of unvarnished genius, Geoffrey Chaucer’ s unfinished epic poem is also one of the most beloved works in the English language–and for good reason: It is lively, absorbing, perceptive, and outrageously funny. But despite the brilliance of Chaucer’s work, the continual evolution of our language has rendered his words unfamiliar to many of us. Esteemed poet, translator, and scholar Burton Raffel’s magnificent new unabridged translation brings Chaucer’s poetry back to life, ensuring that none of the original’s wit, wisdom, or humanity is lost to the modern reader. This Modern Library edition also features an Introduction by the widely influential medievalist and author John Miles Foley that discusses Chaucer’ s work as well as his life and times.

“A delight . . . [Raffel’s translation] provides more opportunities to savor the counterpoint of Chaucer’s earthy humor against passages of piercingly beautiful lyric poetry.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Masterly . . . This new translation beckons us to make our own pilgrimage back to the very wellsprings of literature in our language.” —Billy Collins

“The Canterbury Tales has remained popular for seven centuries. It is the most approachable masterpiece of the medieval world, and Mr. Raffel’s translation makes the stories even more inviting.”—Wall Street Journal

Author

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400), often referred to as “the grandfather of English literature,” is invariably ranked with Shakespeare and Milton as one of the three greatest poets of the English language. His masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, has been a touchstone for English-language poetry for more than half a millennium and is one of the most widely read works in the Western canon. View titles by Geoffrey Chaucer

Excerpt

The Knight’s Tale

1

Introduction

1 The Knight’s Tale, which mostly takes place in ancient Athens, is the conflicted love story of two royal Theban cousins who love the same woman. Because “The Knight’s Tale” is by far the longest and most complex of the Canterbury Tales presented in this volume, a quick summary of the action of the four parts of the tale may help readers encountering it for the first time:

Part I. On his way back to Athens with his bride, Hypolita, and his sister-in-law, Emily, Duke Theseus responds to the pleas of some grieving widows by defeating Creon, the tyrant of Thebes. Among the bodies of the defeated army, he finds near death the royal cousins Palamon and Arcite. Rather than kill them, Theseus takes them back to Athens and places them in prison. From their barred prison window, the two young men see the lovely Emily and both fall in love with her. Arcite after a time is released but banished from Athens on pain of death, while Palamon remains in prison. The two are envious of each other’s condition.

Part II. Arcite disguises himself as a common laborer and comes back to Athens, where he gets a job working in Emily’s household. Meanwhile, Palamon escapes from prison, and the rival cousins chance to meet in a grove near Athens. While Palamon and Arcite are fighting a bloody duel, Theseus, Hypolita, and Emily, out hunting, by chance come upon them in a grove. At first angry, Theseus soon relents, sets both of his enemies free, and invites them to return in a year, each with a hundred knights, to take part in a glorious tournament, with Emily’s hand going to the winner.

Part III. Theseus builds a splendid amphitheater in preparation for the tournament and places on its west, east, and north borders elaborately decorated temples to Mars, Venus, and Diana. When the two troops of warriors come back for the tournament, the three principals each pray to one of the planetary deities. Palamon prays to Venus, not for victory but for the hand of Emily. Emily prays to Diana to be spared marriage to either Palamon or Arcite, praying instead to remain a maiden always. Arcite prays to Mars for victory in the tournament.

Part IV. Just before the tournament begins Theseus declares that he wants no lives to be lost and restricts the kinds of weapons that may be used. He sets out the rules of the game, the primary one being that the winning side will be the one that takes the loser to a stake at the end of the field. After vigorous fighting, Arcite’s men drag the wounded Palamon to the stake. No sooner is Arcite declared the winner than Saturn commands Pluto, god of the underworld, to send a diabolical fury to frighten Arcite’s horse. Arcite is thrown and crushed by his own saddle bow. After an elaborate funeral and the passage of some years, Theseus tells Palamon and Emily to marry, and they happily do so.





Arching over the story of the warriors and lovers down on the earth below is a heavenly conflict among the gods or, more precisely, among the planetary or astrological influences that were thought to control the affairs of men. Indeed, a key feature of “The Knight’s Tale” is the prayers of the three principal characters to these influences. Closely tied up with the question of whether Palamon or Arcite will get the young woman they both love is the question of how the powerful Saturn will settle the conflicting demands on him of Mars, Venus, and Diana.

Chaucer’s main source for “The Knight’s Tale” is Giovanni Boccaccio’s several-hundred-page-long Teseida. Readers who are upset at having to read Chaucer’s long and leisurely story of Palamon, Arcite, and Emily should thank Chaucer for streamlining a story that is less than a quarter the length of Boccaccio’s Italian story of Palemone, Arcita, and Emilia. Chaucer reduced the story in lots of ways, particularly by staying focused on the love story. He cut out, for example, Boccaccio’s long opening description of Theseus’s journey to the land of the Amazons, his defeat of them, and his acquiring as his bride the Amazonian queen Hypolita. But Chaucer did more than reduce the Teseida, which focuses on Arcite as the main character, who in Boccaccio is almost a tragic figure who makes the mistake of praying to the wrong deity. For Chaucer, Palamon is raised to equal importance, if not more importance, than his rival. And Chaucer transforms the vain and coquettish Emilia of his source into a more innocent object of the love of rival cousins.

One of Chaucer’s most important changes was to give the story a philosophical overlay by introducing into it the ideas of the ancient philosopher Boethius. One of Boethius’s key ideas was that there is a great God who designs a far better plan for human beings than they could possibly design for themselves. That design sometimes involves what looks like adversity, but the adversity is always (for Boethius) part of a design that leads to happiness. We should then, according to Boethius, not resist or fight against the troubles that come our way, but cheerfully accept them, trusting that in the end things will work out for the best. The ending of “The Knight’s Tale,” then, reflects this reassuring philosophy by showing that although the three principal characters all seem at first not to get what they want most, in the end all of them do get what they want, or perhaps something even better.

For this and the other tales in this volume, readers should reread the portrait of the teller given by Chaucer in the General Prologue. The portrait of the Knight (lines 43–78) shows him to be the idealized Christian soldier who fought with valor and honor at most of the important late-fourteenth-century battles against heathens. We know less of his marital than of his martial life, but he does have a son who is with him on this pilgrimage. The Knight seems, all in all, an ideal teller for the long tale of war, romance, honor, and philosophy that Chaucer assigns to him.

Notes

Part I

Femenye (line 8). A race of warlike women, led by Hypolita, who decided that they could live and protect themselves without the help of men. They are sometimes called Amazons, their land Scithia.

Saturne, Juno (470–71). Two forces that Palamon blames for the setbacks that Thebes has suffered. Saturn is the powerful planet. Juno is the jealous wife of Jupiter, who had made love to two Theban women.

Part II

Hereos (516). Eros, a sickness associated with the intense emotion of falling in love.

manye (516). A kind of melancholy madness or mania brought on by the frustration of his love for an inaccessible woman.

Argus (532). In classical mythology, the jealous Juno had set the hundred-eyed Argus as guard to Io, who was a lover of her husband, Jupiter. Argus was killed by Mercury (see line 527), who first sang all of Argus’s hundred eyes to sleep.

Cadme and Amphioun (688). Cadmus and Amphion are the legendary founders of the city of Thebes, home to Palamon and Arcite.

regne of Trace (780). The reference in this and the next lines is to the Thracian kingdom in which a hunter prepares himself at a mountain pass to meet a charging lion or bear.

Part III

Citheroun (1078). Venus’s supposed mountainous island of Cytherea, though Chaucer may have confused the name with the name of a different location.

Ydelnesse, Salamon, Hercules, Medea, Circes, Turnus, Cresus (1082–88). Various literary, historical, and classical allusions, most of them demonstrating the follies and miseries associated with the snares of love.

qualm (1156). Probably a reference to the “pestilence” or bubonic plague that killed millions in Europe during Chaucer’s lifetime. See also line 1611 below, where Saturn claims to have the power to send the plague. The reference to the bubonic plague here is anachronistic, since “The Knight’s Tale” is set in the classical pre-Christian era.

Julius, Nero, Antonius (1173–74). Three famous rulers slaughtered in time of war—exemplary of the mayhem and death caused by mighty Mars. The last is Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla, a Roman emperor murdered in AD 217.

Puella, Rubeus (1187). Two astrological references to Mars as cast by a complicated process called geomancy, a pseudoscience involving dots and lines.

Calistopee, Dane, Attheon, Atthalante, Meleagre (1198– 1213). Various classical and legendary allusions to hunters or the hunted whose unfortunate tales are depicted on the walls of the temple of Diana, goddess of the hunt.

griffon (1275). A griffin was in Greek mythology a fearsome beast with the head and wings of an eagle on the body of a lion.

in hir houre (1359). Palamon picks his hour of prayer carefully. The various planets were supposed to have special powers on certain hours of the day, hours in which it was particularly propitious to make prayers for their astrological influence. Venus would have had special strength on the twenty-third hour of Sunday night (see line 1351), when it was not yet two hours before dawn on Monday morning (line 1352).

the thridde houre inequal (1413). The medieval astrological day was divided into twenty-four “inequal” or planetary hours. In this system the time between dawn and dusk was divided equally into twelve hours, the time between dusk and the following dawn into twelve more. Except at the two equinoxes, when the daylight hours would have been exactly equal in length to the nighttime hours (that is, sixty minutes), the daylight hours would have been longer or shorter than the hours of darkness, depending on the time of the year—thus the inequality. Emily prays to Diana on the third inequal hour after Palamon prayed to Venus. That would have been the first hour of Monday (“moon day”), or the dawn hour, the hour at which Diana’s power would have been the greatest. Like Palamon, Emily picks her prayer time very carefully.

Stace of Thebes (1436). The Thebaid of Statius, though Chaucer’s more direct source was actually Boccaccio’s Teseida, which he does not mention by name here or elsewhere. Chaucer was often eager to claim an ancient source, not a contemporary one.

Attheon (1445). While hunting, Acteon accidentally saw Diana while she was bathing. In her anger she changed him into a stag, which Acteon’s hunting dogs then killed, not realizing that they were killing their master. See lines 1207–10 above, where Acteon’s unhappy story is artistically summarized on the walls of Diana’s temple.

thre formes (1455). As suggested in lines 1439–42 above, the goddess was imagined to have appeared in various forms. The three referred to here are probably Luna, the moon (in the heavens), the chaste Diana, the huntress (on earth), and Proserpina, the reluctant wife of Pluto (in the underworld).

the nexte houre of Mars (1509). Mars’s next hour, the hour that Arcite would have selected for his prayer to Mars, would have been the fourth hour of that Monday.

Part IV

al that Monday (1628). Monday is given over to partying and celebrations so that the tournament itself takes place the next day, on a Tuesday, or Mars’s day (“Mardi” in French). Since Tuesday is the day when the influence of Mars is strongest, it would not have surprised a medieval audience that Arcite, who had prayed to Mars, wins the tournament.

Galgopheye (1768). Probably a valley in another part of Greece, perhaps Gargaphia.

Belmarye (1772). Probably Benmarin in Morocco but, like the previous name, perhaps just meant to be an exotic place where wild animals were rampant and dangerous.

furie infernal (1826). A fury was an avenging spirit usually confined to the underworld but released from time to time to influence the affairs of men, sometimes to see that justice was done.

vertu expulsif (1891). This “virtue” involved the ability to expel certain harmful poisons from the body. This complex account of the mechanics of Arcite’s dying, the technical details of which are not important here, shows Chaucer’s awareness of the medical terminology of his day.

Firste Moevere (2129). This First Mover who creates the links in the great “chain of love,” though later in the passage identified as Jupiter, may perhaps be read as an anachronistic stand-in for the Judeo-Christian godhead, the all- loving deity who stands above and beyond the planetary gods and goddesses that seem to control the fates of men. This prime mover determines the number of years indi- vidual men and women get to live on earth and arranges things better for them than they could arrange them for themselves.
Copyright © 2006 by Geoffrey Chaucer. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Praise

“A delight . . . [Raffel’s translation] provides more opportunities to savor the counterpoint of Chaucer’s earthy humor against passages of piercingly beautiful lyric poetry.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Masterly . . . This new translation beckons us to make our own pilgrimage back to the very wellsprings of literature in our language.” —Billy Collins

“The Canterbury Tales has remained popular for seven centuries. It is the most approachable masterpiece of the medieval world, and Mr. Raffel’s translation makes the stories even more inviting.”—Wall Street Journal

Additional formats

  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $5.99 US
    Mass Market Paperback
    Feb 01, 1982
  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $5.99 US
    Mass Market Paperback
    Feb 01, 1982

Other books in this series

  • Wuthering Heights
    Wuthering Heights
    Emily Bronte
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Dec 07, 2021
  • The Voyage Out
    The Voyage Out
    Virginia Woolf
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 06, 2021
  • The Southern Woman
    The Southern Woman
    Selected Fiction
    Elizabeth Spencer
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    May 11, 2021
  • The Squatter and the Don
    The Squatter and the Don
    Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Mar 02, 2021
  • Leaves of Grass
    Leaves of Grass
    Walt Whitman
    $14.00 US
    Paperback
    May 28, 2019
  • The Mysterious Affair at Styles
    The Mysterious Affair at Styles
    The First Hercule Poirot Mystery
    Agatha Christie
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 30, 2019
  • The War of the Worlds
    The War of the Worlds
    H. G. Wells
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 06, 2018
  • The Dark Interval
    The Dark Interval
    Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation
    Rainer Maria Rilke
    $22.00 US
    Hardcover
    Aug 14, 2018
  • The Greek Plays
    The Greek Plays
    Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
    Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides
    $25.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 05, 2017
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge
    The Mayor of Casterbridge
    Thomas Hardy
    $11.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 08, 2016
  • Anne of Green Gables
    Anne of Green Gables
    L. M. Montgomery
    $19.99 US
    Hardcover
    Nov 25, 2014
  • The Scarlet Letter
    The Scarlet Letter
    A Romance
    Nathaniel Hawthorne
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 26, 2014
  • The Metamorphosis
    The Metamorphosis
    Franz Kafka
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 26, 2013
  • Madame Bovary
    Madame Bovary
    Gustave Flaubert
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 13, 2013
  • The Essential Writings of Rousseau
    The Essential Writings of Rousseau
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Mar 26, 2013
  • The Essential Prose of John Milton
    The Essential Prose of John Milton
    John Milton
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Mar 12, 2013
  • Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and the Complete Shorter Poems
    Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and the Complete Shorter Poems
    John Milton
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Dec 04, 2012
  • King John & Henry VIII
    King John & Henry VIII
    William Shakespeare
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 10, 2012
  • Henry VI
    Henry VI
    Parts I, II, and III
    William Shakespeare
    $14.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 10, 2012
  • Pericles
    Pericles
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 10, 2012
  • The Adventures of Amir Hamza
    The Adventures of Amir Hamza
    Special abridged edition
    Ghalib Lakhnavi, Abdullah Bilgrami
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Feb 14, 2012
  • The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
    The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
    Introduction by Jean-Marc Hovasse
    Victor Hugo
    $26.00 US
    Hardcover
    Feb 07, 2012
  • Panorama
    Panorama
    A Novel
    H. G. Adler
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Jan 10, 2012
  • Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens
    Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens
    William Shakespeare
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 13, 2011
  • All's Well That Ends Well
    All's Well That Ends Well
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 13, 2011
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
    The Two Gentlemen of Verona
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 13, 2011
  • Cymbeline
    Cymbeline
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 13, 2011
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
    The Merry Wives of Windsor
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 14, 2011
  • The Comedy of Errors
    The Comedy of Errors
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 14, 2011
  • Coriolanus
    Coriolanus
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 14, 2011
  • Julius Caesar
    Julius Caesar
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 14, 2011
  • Measure for Measure
    Measure for Measure
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2010
  • The Taming of the Shrew
    The Taming of the Shrew
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2010
  • Richard II
    Richard II
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2010
  • Troilus and Cressida
    Troilus and Cressida
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2010
  • Ethics
    Ethics
    The Essential Writings
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 10, 2010
  • The Merchant of Venice
    The Merchant of Venice
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    May 04, 2010
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
    The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
    A Novel
    Mark Twain
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 06, 2010
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    Mark Twain
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 06, 2010
  • The Mystery of Edwin Drood
    The Mystery of Edwin Drood
    Charles Dickens
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Oct 06, 2009
  • The Journey
    The Journey
    A Novel
    H. G. Adler
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 08, 2009
  • Othello
    Othello
    William Shakespeare
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 25, 2009
  • Romeo and Juliet
    Romeo and Juliet
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 25, 2009
  • Henry IV, Part 1
    Henry IV, Part 1
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 25, 2009
  • Henry IV, Part 2
    Henry IV, Part 2
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 25, 2009
  • Les Misérables
    Les Misérables
    Victor Hugo
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 14, 2009
  • The Belly of Paris
    The Belly of Paris
    Emile Zola
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    May 12, 2009
  • Antony and Cleopatra
    Antony and Cleopatra
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 14, 2009
  • The Winter's Tale
    The Winter's Tale
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 14, 2009
  • The Sonnets and Other Poems
    The Sonnets and Other Poems
    William Shakespeare
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 14, 2009
  • Jane Eyre
    Jane Eyre
    Charlotte Bronte
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 07, 2009
  • The Travels of Marco Polo
    The Travels of Marco Polo
    Introduction by Colin Thubron
    Marco Polo
    $32.00 US
    Hardcover
    Oct 21, 2008
  • The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson
    The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson
    James Weldon Johnson
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Oct 21, 2008
  • Paradise Lost
    Paradise Lost
    John Milton
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 09, 2008
  • Hamlet
    Hamlet
    William Shakespeare
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • The Tempest
    The Tempest
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
    A Midsummer Night's Dream
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • Richard III
    Richard III
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • Love's Labour's Lost
    Love's Labour's Lost
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • Georges
    Georges
    Alexandre Dumas
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 10, 2008
  • The Prince
    The Prince
    Niccolo Machiavelli
    $14.00 US
    Paperback
    Feb 05, 2008
  • Siddhartha
    Siddhartha
    Hermann Hesse
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Dec 04, 2007
  • The Essential Feminist Reader
    The Essential Feminist Reader
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 18, 2007
  • Emma
    Emma
    Jane Austen
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 04, 2007
  • Life on the Mississippi
    Life on the Mississippi
    Mark Twain
    $13.00 US
    Paperback
    May 29, 2007
  • The Essential Writings of Machiavelli
    The Essential Writings of Machiavelli
    Niccolo Machiavelli
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 03, 2007
  • The Dhammapada
    The Dhammapada
    Verses on the Way
    Glenn Wallis, Buddha
    $13.00 US
    Paperback
    Jan 09, 2007
  • The Memoirs of Catherine the Great
    The Memoirs of Catherine the Great
    Catherine the Great
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 13, 2006
  • The Murders in the Rue Morgue
    The Murders in the Rue Morgue
    Edgar Allan Poe
    $13.00 US
    Paperback
    May 23, 2006
  • The Gilded Age
    The Gilded Age
    Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Mar 14, 2006
  • The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
    The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
    Giorgio Vasari
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Feb 14, 2006
  • The American Transcendentalists
    The American Transcendentalists
    Essential Writings
    Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Jan 10, 2006
  • The Constitutional Convention
    The Constitutional Convention
    A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison
    James Madison, Edward J. Larson, Michael P. Winship
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 08, 2005
  • Candide
    Candide
    or, Optimism
    Voltaire
    $13.00 US
    Paperback
    Oct 11, 2005
  • The Sport of the Gods
    The Sport of the Gods
    and Other Essential Writings
    Paul Laurence Dunbar
    $23.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 09, 2005
  • The Kill
    The Kill
    Emile Zola
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 12, 2005
  • The Wrong Side of Paris
    The Wrong Side of Paris
    Honoré de Balzac
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 12, 2005
  • The Sorrows of Young Werther
    The Sorrows of Young Werther
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    $10.95 US
    Paperback
    Feb 08, 2005
  • Essential Stories
    Essential Stories
    V. S. Pritchett
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Jan 04, 2005
  • I Promise to Be Good
    I Promise to Be Good
    The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud
    Arthur Rimbaud
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 09, 2004
  • Peter Pan
    Peter Pan
    J.M. Barrie, F.D. Bedford
    $10.95 US
    Paperback
    Oct 12, 2004
  • The Haunted House
    The Haunted House
    Charles Dickens
    $14.00 US
    Paperback
    Oct 12, 2004
  • The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    Laurence Sterne
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 21, 2004
  • The Knight of Maison-Rouge
    The Knight of Maison-Rouge
    A Novel of Marie Antoinette
    Alexandre Dumas
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2004
  • Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings
    Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings
    Jefferson Davis
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 10, 2004
  • The Book of Spies
    The Book of Spies
    An Anthology of Literary Espionage
    Anthony Burgess, John Steinbeck, Rebecca West, John le Carré
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 08, 2004
  • The Importance of Being Earnest
    The Importance of Being Earnest
    And Other Plays
    Oscar Wilde
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 08, 2004
  • The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
    The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
    or, Gustavus Vassa, the African
    Olaudah Equiano
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    May 11, 2004
  • The Red and the Black
    The Red and the Black
    Stendhal
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    May 11, 2004
  • Basic Writings of Existentialism
    Basic Writings of Existentialism
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 13, 2004
  • Wuthering Heights
    Wuthering Heights
    Emily Bronte
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Dec 07, 2021
  • The Voyage Out
    The Voyage Out
    Virginia Woolf
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 06, 2021
  • The Southern Woman
    The Southern Woman
    Selected Fiction
    Elizabeth Spencer
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    May 11, 2021
  • The Squatter and the Don
    The Squatter and the Don
    Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Mar 02, 2021
  • Leaves of Grass
    Leaves of Grass
    Walt Whitman
    $14.00 US
    Paperback
    May 28, 2019
  • The Mysterious Affair at Styles
    The Mysterious Affair at Styles
    The First Hercule Poirot Mystery
    Agatha Christie
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 30, 2019
  • The War of the Worlds
    The War of the Worlds
    H. G. Wells
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 06, 2018
  • The Dark Interval
    The Dark Interval
    Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation
    Rainer Maria Rilke
    $22.00 US
    Hardcover
    Aug 14, 2018
  • The Greek Plays
    The Greek Plays
    Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
    Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides
    $25.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 05, 2017
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge
    The Mayor of Casterbridge
    Thomas Hardy
    $11.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 08, 2016
  • Anne of Green Gables
    Anne of Green Gables
    L. M. Montgomery
    $19.99 US
    Hardcover
    Nov 25, 2014
  • The Scarlet Letter
    The Scarlet Letter
    A Romance
    Nathaniel Hawthorne
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 26, 2014
  • The Metamorphosis
    The Metamorphosis
    Franz Kafka
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 26, 2013
  • Madame Bovary
    Madame Bovary
    Gustave Flaubert
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 13, 2013
  • The Essential Writings of Rousseau
    The Essential Writings of Rousseau
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Mar 26, 2013
  • The Essential Prose of John Milton
    The Essential Prose of John Milton
    John Milton
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Mar 12, 2013
  • Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and the Complete Shorter Poems
    Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and the Complete Shorter Poems
    John Milton
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Dec 04, 2012
  • King John & Henry VIII
    King John & Henry VIII
    William Shakespeare
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 10, 2012
  • Henry VI
    Henry VI
    Parts I, II, and III
    William Shakespeare
    $14.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 10, 2012
  • Pericles
    Pericles
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 10, 2012
  • The Adventures of Amir Hamza
    The Adventures of Amir Hamza
    Special abridged edition
    Ghalib Lakhnavi, Abdullah Bilgrami
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Feb 14, 2012
  • The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
    The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
    Introduction by Jean-Marc Hovasse
    Victor Hugo
    $26.00 US
    Hardcover
    Feb 07, 2012
  • Panorama
    Panorama
    A Novel
    H. G. Adler
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Jan 10, 2012
  • Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens
    Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens
    William Shakespeare
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 13, 2011
  • All's Well That Ends Well
    All's Well That Ends Well
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 13, 2011
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
    The Two Gentlemen of Verona
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 13, 2011
  • Cymbeline
    Cymbeline
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 13, 2011
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
    The Merry Wives of Windsor
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 14, 2011
  • The Comedy of Errors
    The Comedy of Errors
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 14, 2011
  • Coriolanus
    Coriolanus
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 14, 2011
  • Julius Caesar
    Julius Caesar
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 14, 2011
  • Measure for Measure
    Measure for Measure
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2010
  • The Taming of the Shrew
    The Taming of the Shrew
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2010
  • Richard II
    Richard II
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2010
  • Troilus and Cressida
    Troilus and Cressida
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2010
  • Ethics
    Ethics
    The Essential Writings
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 10, 2010
  • The Merchant of Venice
    The Merchant of Venice
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    May 04, 2010
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
    The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
    A Novel
    Mark Twain
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 06, 2010
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    Mark Twain
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 06, 2010
  • The Mystery of Edwin Drood
    The Mystery of Edwin Drood
    Charles Dickens
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Oct 06, 2009
  • The Journey
    The Journey
    A Novel
    H. G. Adler
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 08, 2009
  • Othello
    Othello
    William Shakespeare
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 25, 2009
  • Romeo and Juliet
    Romeo and Juliet
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 25, 2009
  • Henry IV, Part 1
    Henry IV, Part 1
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 25, 2009
  • Henry IV, Part 2
    Henry IV, Part 2
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 25, 2009
  • Les Misérables
    Les Misérables
    Victor Hugo
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 14, 2009
  • The Belly of Paris
    The Belly of Paris
    Emile Zola
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    May 12, 2009
  • Antony and Cleopatra
    Antony and Cleopatra
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 14, 2009
  • The Winter's Tale
    The Winter's Tale
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 14, 2009
  • The Sonnets and Other Poems
    The Sonnets and Other Poems
    William Shakespeare
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 14, 2009
  • Jane Eyre
    Jane Eyre
    Charlotte Bronte
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 07, 2009
  • The Travels of Marco Polo
    The Travels of Marco Polo
    Introduction by Colin Thubron
    Marco Polo
    $32.00 US
    Hardcover
    Oct 21, 2008
  • The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson
    The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson
    James Weldon Johnson
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Oct 21, 2008
  • Paradise Lost
    Paradise Lost
    John Milton
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 09, 2008
  • Hamlet
    Hamlet
    William Shakespeare
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • The Tempest
    The Tempest
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
    A Midsummer Night's Dream
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • Richard III
    Richard III
    William Shakespeare
    $8.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • Love's Labour's Lost
    Love's Labour's Lost
    William Shakespeare
    $9.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 12, 2008
  • Georges
    Georges
    Alexandre Dumas
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 10, 2008
  • The Prince
    The Prince
    Niccolo Machiavelli
    $14.00 US
    Paperback
    Feb 05, 2008
  • Siddhartha
    Siddhartha
    Hermann Hesse
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    Dec 04, 2007
  • The Essential Feminist Reader
    The Essential Feminist Reader
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 18, 2007
  • Emma
    Emma
    Jane Austen
    $10.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 04, 2007
  • Life on the Mississippi
    Life on the Mississippi
    Mark Twain
    $13.00 US
    Paperback
    May 29, 2007
  • The Essential Writings of Machiavelli
    The Essential Writings of Machiavelli
    Niccolo Machiavelli
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 03, 2007
  • The Dhammapada
    The Dhammapada
    Verses on the Way
    Glenn Wallis, Buddha
    $13.00 US
    Paperback
    Jan 09, 2007
  • The Memoirs of Catherine the Great
    The Memoirs of Catherine the Great
    Catherine the Great
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 13, 2006
  • The Murders in the Rue Morgue
    The Murders in the Rue Morgue
    Edgar Allan Poe
    $13.00 US
    Paperback
    May 23, 2006
  • The Gilded Age
    The Gilded Age
    Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Mar 14, 2006
  • The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
    The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
    Giorgio Vasari
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Feb 14, 2006
  • The American Transcendentalists
    The American Transcendentalists
    Essential Writings
    Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Jan 10, 2006
  • The Constitutional Convention
    The Constitutional Convention
    A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison
    James Madison, Edward J. Larson, Michael P. Winship
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 08, 2005
  • Candide
    Candide
    or, Optimism
    Voltaire
    $13.00 US
    Paperback
    Oct 11, 2005
  • The Sport of the Gods
    The Sport of the Gods
    and Other Essential Writings
    Paul Laurence Dunbar
    $23.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 09, 2005
  • The Kill
    The Kill
    Emile Zola
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 12, 2005
  • The Wrong Side of Paris
    The Wrong Side of Paris
    Honoré de Balzac
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 12, 2005
  • The Sorrows of Young Werther
    The Sorrows of Young Werther
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    $10.95 US
    Paperback
    Feb 08, 2005
  • Essential Stories
    Essential Stories
    V. S. Pritchett
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Jan 04, 2005
  • I Promise to Be Good
    I Promise to Be Good
    The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud
    Arthur Rimbaud
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 09, 2004
  • Peter Pan
    Peter Pan
    J.M. Barrie, F.D. Bedford
    $10.95 US
    Paperback
    Oct 12, 2004
  • The Haunted House
    The Haunted House
    Charles Dickens
    $14.00 US
    Paperback
    Oct 12, 2004
  • The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    Laurence Sterne
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 21, 2004
  • The Knight of Maison-Rouge
    The Knight of Maison-Rouge
    A Novel of Marie Antoinette
    Alexandre Dumas
    $16.00 US
    Paperback
    Sep 14, 2004
  • Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings
    Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings
    Jefferson Davis
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Aug 10, 2004
  • The Book of Spies
    The Book of Spies
    An Anthology of Literary Espionage
    Anthony Burgess, John Steinbeck, Rebecca West, John le Carré
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 08, 2004
  • The Importance of Being Earnest
    The Importance of Being Earnest
    And Other Plays
    Oscar Wilde
    $12.00 US
    Paperback
    Jun 08, 2004
  • The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
    The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
    or, Gustavus Vassa, the African
    Olaudah Equiano
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    May 11, 2004
  • The Red and the Black
    The Red and the Black
    Stendhal
    $15.00 US
    Paperback
    May 11, 2004
  • Basic Writings of Existentialism
    Basic Writings of Existentialism
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 13, 2004

Other Books by this Author

  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    Geoffrey Chaucer, Coralie Bickford-Smith
    $25.00 US
    Hardcover
    Dec 29, 2015
  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    A Prose Version in Modern English
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $11.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 12, 2011
  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    A Retelling by Peter Ackroyd (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
    Geoffrey Chaucer, Ted Stearn
    $22.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 02, 2010
  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    A Selection
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 28, 2009
  • Troilus and Cressida
    Troilus and Cressida
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 09, 2002
  • Canterbury Tales
    Canterbury Tales
    Introduction by Derek Pearsall
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $28.00 US
    Hardcover
    Jun 30, 1992
  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    Geoffrey Chaucer, Coralie Bickford-Smith
    $25.00 US
    Hardcover
    Dec 29, 2015
  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    A Prose Version in Modern English
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $11.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 12, 2011
  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    A Retelling by Peter Ackroyd (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
    Geoffrey Chaucer, Ted Stearn
    $22.00 US
    Paperback
    Nov 02, 2010
  • The Canterbury Tales
    The Canterbury Tales
    A Selection
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $17.00 US
    Paperback
    Jul 28, 2009
  • Troilus and Cressida
    Troilus and Cressida
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $19.00 US
    Paperback
    Apr 09, 2002
  • Canterbury Tales
    Canterbury Tales
    Introduction by Derek Pearsall
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    $28.00 US
    Hardcover
    Jun 30, 1992
Related Articles
General Education & Professional Learning English Language Arts Favorite Authors & Series References Science Social Studies The Arts History High School Middle School Graphic Novels Classroom Libraries Translanguaging Collections
April 19 2022

NEW! PRH Education Translanguaging Collections

Translanguaging is a communicative practice of bilinguals and multilinguals, that is, it is a practice whereby bilinguals and multilinguals use their entire linguistic repertoire to communicate and make meaning (García, 2009; García, Ibarra Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017)   It is through that lens that we have partnered with teacher educators and bilingual education experts, Drs.

Read more

NEW! PRH Education Translanguaging Collections

General Education & Professional Learning English Language Arts Favorite Authors & Series References Science Social Studies The Arts History High School Middle School Graphic Novels Classroom Libraries Translanguaging Collections
April 19 2022
General English Language Arts Favorite Authors & Series References Science Social Studies The Arts History Middle School Graphic Novels Classroom Libraries Environmental Science
October 22 2020

PRH Education Classroom Libraries

“Books are a students’ passport to entering and actively participating in a global society with the empathy, compassion, and knowledge it takes to become the problem solvers the world needs.” –Laura Robb   Research shows that reading and literacy directly impacts students’ academic success and personal growth. To help promote the importance of daily independent

Read more

PRH Education Classroom Libraries

General English Language Arts Favorite Authors & Series References Science Social Studies The Arts History Middle School Graphic Novels Classroom Libraries Environmental Science
October 22 2020
Connect with Us!

Get the latest news on all things Secondary Education. Learn about our books, authors, teacher events, and more!

Friend us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Subscribe on YouTube

View us on Pinterest

Our mission is to foster a universal passion for reading by partnering with authors to help create stories and communicate ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire.

Privacy Policy   |   Terms of Use

© 2023 Penguin Random House

About Secondary Education

  • About Us
  • FAQ
  • Conferences
  • Contact your PreK-12 Representative
  • Browse & subscribe to our newsletters

Penguin Random House Education

  • Elementary
  • Secondary
  • Higher Ed
  • Common Reads

Penguin Random House

  • PenguinRandomHouse.com
  • global.PenguinRandomHouse.com
  • Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau

About Secondary Education

  • About Us
  • FAQ
  • Conferences

Penguin Random House Education

  • Elementary
  • Secondary
  • Higher Ed
  • Common Reads
  • Contact your PreK-12 Representative
  • Browse & subscribe to our newsletters

Penguin Random House

  • PenguinRandomHouse.com
  • global.PenguinRandomHouse.com
  • Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau

Privacy Policy   |   Terms of Use

© 2023 Penguin Random House
Back to Top

/