剧情介绍
坎特伯雷故事集
the canterbury tales
杰弗雷·乔叟
geoffrey chaucer
the canterbury tales is a collection of stories written in middle english by geoffrey chaucer in the 14th century (two of them in prose, the rest in verse). the tales, some of which are originals and others not, are contained inside a frame tale and told by a group of pilgrims on their way from southwark to canterbury to visit the shrine of saint thomas becket at canterbury cathedral.
the themes of the tales vary, and include topics such as courtly love, treachery, and avarice. the genres also vary, and include romance, breton lai, sermon, beast fable, and fabliau. the characters, introduced in the general prologue of the book, tell tales of great cultural relevance. the version read here was edited by d. laing purves (1838-1873) “for popular perusal” and the language is mostly updated. (wikipedia/gesine)
《坎特伯雷故事集》（the canterbury tales）是一部诗体短篇小说集，叙述朝圣者一行30人会聚在泰巴旅店，这些朝圣者有骑士、僧尼、商人、手工艺者、医生、律师、学者、农夫、家庭主妇等当时英国社会各个阶层的人士，他们准备前往坎特伯雷去朝拜圣托马斯。店主爱热闹，自告奋勇为他们担任向导，并提议在往返圣地的途中每人来回讲两个故事，以解旅途中的寂寥，并由店主做裁判，选出讲故事最好的人，回到旅店后大家合起来请他吃饭。众人接受了店主的建议，于是次日一同踏上朝圣之途，并开始讲故事。
乔叟的《坎特伯雷故事集》不是第一本短篇小说集，甚至让一群人中每人讲一个故事这种形式也不是什么新主意。在薄伽丘的《十日谈》中就有十个人，为了躲避1348年在佛罗伦萨肆虐的瘟疫逃到城郊的庄园。他们就是通过讲故事来消磨时间的。《坎特伯雷故事集》中也有一群人，每个人讲述一个故事。按题材来分，有爱情和骑士探险传奇、宗教和道德训诫故事、诙谐滑稽故事、动物寓言等几大类，内容包罗万象，有雅有俗，有的很有趣。我们不仅对故事本身感兴趣，而且对讲述故事的人也感兴趣。他们中的每个人都是真实的。乔叟在引言中把他们一一作了介绍。他凭借朝圣者之口，汇集了欧洲中世纪文学中的各种主要类型。
杰弗雷·乔叟（geoffrey chaucer，1343年—1400年10月25日），英国小说家、诗人。主要作品有小说集《坎特伯雷故事集》。乔叟出生于伦敦一个富裕的商人家庭，受过大学教育，熟悉法语和意大利语。1357年开始出入宫廷，后常出访欧洲，在意大利接触到了但丁、薄伽丘等人的作品．这影响了他后来的文学创作。乔叟于1400年在伦敦去世，葬在威斯敏斯特教堂的“诗人之角”。乔叟被公认为是中世纪英国最伟大的诗人之一 ，英国诗歌的奠基人，被后人誉为“英国诗歌之父”。
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the object of this volume is to place before the general reader our two early poetic masterpieces — the canterbury tales and the faerie queen; to do so in a way that will render their "popular perusal" easy in a time of little leisure and unbounded temptations to intellectual languor; and, on the same conditions, to present a liberal and fairly representative selection from the less important and familiar poems of chaucer and spenser. there is, it may be said at the outset, peculiar advantage and propriety in placing the two poets side by side in the manner now attempted for the first time. although two centuries divide them, yet spenser is the direct and really the immediate successor to the poetical inheritance of chaucer. those two hundred years, eventful as they were, produced no poet at all worthy to take up the mantle that fell from chaucer's shoulders; and spenser does not need his affected archaisms, nor his frequent and reverent appeals to "dan geffrey," to vindicate for himself a place very close to his great predecessor in the literary history of england. if chaucer is the "well of english undefiled," spenser is the broad and stately river that yet holds the tenure of its very life from the fountain far away in other and ruder scenes.
the canterbury tales, so far as they are in verse, have been printed without any abridgement or designed change in the sense. but the two tales in prose — chaucer's tale of meliboeus, and the parson's long sermon on penitence — have been contracted, so as to exclude thirty pages of unattractive prose, and to admit the same amount of interesting and characteristic poetry. the gaps thus made in the prose tales, however, are supplied by careful outlines of the omitted matter, so that the reader need be at no loss to comprehend the whole scope and sequence of the original. with the faerie queen a bolder course has been pursued. the great obstacle to the popularity of spencer's splendid work has lain less in its language than in its length. if we add together the three great poems of antiquity — the twenty-four books of the iliad, the twenty-four books of the odyssey, and the twelve books of the aeneid — we get at the dimensions of only one-half of the faerie queen. the six books, and the fragment of a seventh, which alone exist of the author's contemplated twelve, number about 35,000 verses; the sixty books of homer and virgil number no more than 37,000. the mere bulk of the poem, then, has opposed a formidable barrier to its popularity; to say nothing of the distracting effect produced by the numberless episodes, the tedious narrations, and the constant repetitions, which have largely swelled that bulk. in this volume the poem is compressed into two-thirds of its original space, through the expedient of representing the less interesting and more mechanical passages by a condensed prose outline, in which it has been sought as far as possible to preserve the very words of the poet. while deprecating a too critical judgement on the bare and constrained precis standing in such trying juxtaposition, it is hoped that the labour bestowed in saving the reader the trouble of wading through much that is not essential for the enjoyment of spencer's marvellous allegory, will not be unappreciated.
