Chaucer For Children A Golden Key

Chaucer for Children : A Golden Key The narrative in early English poetry is almost always very simply and clearly expressed, with the same kind of repetition of facts and names which, as every mother knows, is what children most require in story-telling. The emphasis which the final E gives to many words is another thing which helps to impress the sentences on the memory, the sense being often shorter than the sound. It seems but natural that every English child should know something of one who left so deep an impression on his age, and on the English tongue, that he has been called by Occleve “the finder of our fair language.” For in his day there was actually no national language, no national literature, English consisting of so many dialects, each having its own literature intelligible to comparatively few; and the Court and educated classes still adhering greatly to Norman-French for both speaking and writing. Chaucer, who wrote for the people, chose the best form of English, which was that spoken at Court, at a time when English was regaining supremacy over French; and the form he adopted laid the foundation of our present National Tongue.

Mary Eliza Haweis's introduction to Chaucer's work and legacy for young readers. The book is widely credited with reviving Chaucer's poems for the modern world. These stories from The Canterbury Tales, along with some of Chaucer's shorter poems, were the first to be presented in their original Middle English format alongside contemporary English. In addition, the translations are supplemented by a variety of footnotes providing many fascinating details and background information, setting the scene, tone, and history of each of these wonderful tales.?Originally published in 1877, this edition is derived from the original book with 9 color illustrations and numerous black and whie illustrations throughout by the author. As always, this edition is complete and unabridged.

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 - 25 October 1400), known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He was the first poet to be buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, and astronomer, composing a scientific treatise on the astrolabe for his ten-year-old son Lewis, Chaucer also maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Among his many works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde. He is best known today for The Canterbury Tales.

Excerpt from Chaucer for Children: A Golden Key I think that any one reading these lines twice over as I have roughly indicated, will find the accent one not difficult to practise and the perfect rhythm and ring of the lines facilitates matters, as the ear can frequently guide the pronunciation. The lines can scarcely be read too slowly or majestically. I must not here be understood to imply that difficulties in reading and accentuating' Chaucer are chimerical. But only that it is possible to understand and enjoy him without as much difficulty as is commonly supposed. In perusing the whole of Chaucer, there must needs be exceptional readings and accentuation, which in detail only a student of the subject would comprehend or care for. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.