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Geoffrey Chaucer: The Electronic Canterbury Tales

Daniel T. Kline | U of Alaska Anchorage | Dept of English
Chaucer Pedagogy Page | Chaucer Metapage

Web Resources by Tale 

Electronic Canterbury Tales Home Page

Fragment I / Group A
The General Prologue
The Knight's Tale
The Miller's Prologue & Tale
The Reeve's Prologue & Tale
The Cook's Prologue & Tale

Fragment II / Group B1
The Man of Law's Introduction, Prologue, Tale, & Epilogue

Fragment III / Group D
The Wife of Bath's Prologue & Tale
The Friar's Prologue & Tale
The Summoner's Prologue & Tale

Fragment IV / Group E
The Clerk's Prologue & Tale
The Merchant's Prologue, Tale, & Epilogue
 
Fragment V / Group F
The Squire's Introduction & Tale
The Franklin's Prologue & Tale

Fragment VI / Group C
The Physician's Tale
The Pardoner's Introduction, Prologue, & Tale

Fragment VII / Group B2
The Shipman's Tale
The Prioress's Prologue & Tale
The Prologue & Tale of Sir Thopas
The Tale of Melibee
The Monk's Prologue & Tale
The Nun's Priest's Prologue,
Tale, & Epilogue

 
Fragment VIII / Group G
The Second Nun's Prologue & Tale
The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue & Tale

Fragment IX / Group H 
The Manciple's Prologue & Tale

Fragment X / Group I
The Parson's Prologue & Tale
The Retraction



The Electronic Canterbury Tales:
Troilus and Criseyde


Additional Pages in The Electronic Canterbury Tales

Chaucer the Narrator - Pilgrim and Author

Chaucer's "Orphan" Pilgrims

The Frame Tale, Later Continuations,& Apocrypha

Troilus and Criseyde

Electronic Chaucer Texts: What's Available Online?

Chaucer in / and Popular Culture

Headings, Organization, & Criteria for Inclusion

ECT Revision History:
What's New?

The Chaucer Pedagogy Documentation Primer

The Chaucer Pedagogy Page


Need Teaching Ideas & Resources?
The Chaucer Pedagogy Page


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Complete Online Versions of the Canterbury Tales

The Complete Tales in Middle English at UVa (1510 kb)

Search the UVa Middle English Text Archive

Sinan Kökbugur's hypertext, helpfully glossed Middle English edition at the Librarius Homepage

The Electronic Library Foundation's edition of the Canterbury Tales is available in a variety of formats

The Litrix Reading Room Translation of the Canterbury Tales 


Top 15
Medieval & Chaucer-Related Sites

The Aberdeen On-line Bestiary

Argos: Limited Area Search of the Ancient & Medieval Internet

The Camelot Project

Exploring Ancient World Cultures

Geoffrey Chaucer:  Annotated Guide to Online Resources


Gothic Dreams

The Harvard Chaucer Page

Internet Medieval Sourcebook

The Labyrinth

The Luminarium

The Online Medieval and Classical Library

Project Seafarer / Anglo-Saxon.net

TEAMS Middle English Text Series

Univ. of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative


Voice of the Shuttle


 

Chaucer in / and Popular Culture

Whole industries have been developed around the marketing and mass production of literary classics; Shakespeare, whose name and image graces everything from big budget Hollywood movies to, well, almost anything, is probably the most high profile (and high brow) example.

On this page you'll find a Chaucer transformed in and by popular culture.  This ad hoc WWW list is serendipitous and idiosyncratic, funny and odd, and ultimately more revealing about our own historical period than it is of Chaucer.   I'll cross-list any tale-specific items on the appropriate page under Potpourri.

To what uses has the name and image of Chaucer been put?   Let's see . . .


The Arts

Obviously, somebody didn't read the Miller's Prologue well enough.  See the place of the Miller's Tale in current arguments about censorship, "morality," and funding for the arts in Martin Garbus' editorial in The Nation, "The Indecent Standard."

Read about the most expensive book in the world:  Caxton's first edition of the Canterbury Tales (c. 1476-77) was auctioned at Sotheby's for $7.5 million in July 1998!

  The Fictitious "Rebel's Tale" comes to us courtesy of those cultural jokesters at the ALR Advocate.

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Did you know that "Tabernacle Rust" is  an Anagram of the Canterbury Tales, at Anagram Genius.  FYI, "William Shakespeare" = "I am a weakish speller"!

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) If you're a teacher, no doubt you've seen some form of The World According to Student Bloopers (Richard Ledere), which features Chaucer as a key writer of the "mid evil" period.  

Chaucerian Performances

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Geoffrey Chaucer & Co., an acting troupe, "is pioneering the staging of ALL 24 Canterbury Tales . . . fully enacted in modern English. Tailor fit original music underscores each theatrical piece by Bay Area award-winning composer John Geist."

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Of the Canterbury Tales, in chronological order:

  • William H. Macy, star of Fargo and formerly Dr. Morganstern on ER, performed in a rendition of The Canterbury Tales in 1975 (dir. Steven Schacter) with the St. Nicholas Theater Company at the Gurnee Renaissance Faire.  The intriguing note reads that after the performance, "W.H. Macy, David Mamet and Patricia Cox worked the crowds with a mind-reading act." If only a record of this moment existed!
  • The University of Waterloo presents The Canterbury Tales, A Bawdy Musical Comedy, 8/ 17 - 8/19, 1990 (music by Richard Hill and John Hawkins, lyrics by Nevill Coghill, dir. by Bill Klos and Mike Bergalier).
  • The New Vic Theatre of London presents an irreverent audience participation version of The Canterbury Tales, 3/3/96 at Cal State Los Angeles (written by Phil Woods with Michael Bogdanov).

Movies, Television, & Videos

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Pasolini's The Canterbury Tales.  According to the Internet Movie DataBase (IMBD), this film ranks 6.3 stars (out of 10).

  • Although some medievalist like the Pasolini's raucus rendition, Leonard Maltin says, "Travelers recount four Chaucer stories--which, unfortunately, are enacted for the viewer. Tiresome, offensive, graphically sadistic, with Pasolini appearing as Chaucer. Italian-English cast; the second of the director's medieval trilogy. BOMB."

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Canterbury No. 2: nuove storie d'amore del '300 (1973, dir. Joe D'Amato). 

  • Did part 2 ever make it into English, even with subtitles?

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) The Canterbury Tales (1998, dir. John Myerson) is also listed in the IMDB.

  • Does anyone have a report on this?

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Chaucer inspired. A Canterbury Tale (1944, dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger).

  • One viewer at IMDB reports, 

    "Whatever the subject of their films one always knows that the results will be special when Powell and Pressburger are involved. Set in war time England the story follows 4 characters (2 soldiers, a woman and a local magistrate) as they eventually make a modern day pilgrimage to Canterbury. Each has their own personal problem and worry mostly brought on by the war. Their stories intertwine with each other as they become acquainted on their journey. The end results are quite special. The end results were probably dictated by the need for an uplifting movie during the War but the results are neither maudlin or contrived and hold up very well after 50 years. One is tempted to single out individual cast members but this is really an ensemble effort and all, from major to minor roles, are quite simply superb. A real gem."

Miscellaneous Single- & Multi-Media

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) The Can't Bury Tales (no info. available)

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Canterbury Tales II: Trek of the Star Warriors (from the Stories from Hell page; no info. available).

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) "Shield of Three Lions [by Pamela Kaufman] has been compared to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales for its bawdy sense of humor and hilariously funny escapades."  A romance novel, I take it.  I do not know who made the comparison, of if it is even warranted.

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) As far as I can tell, Chaucer in Rome has little or nothing to do with our poet, except as part of a catchy play title. Behold the review by Gail M. Burns of the play by John Guare.

Chaucer-Inspired Products

Ancestral Instruments: Chaucer Greatpipes (David Marshall) have a Chaucerian heritage:  "Taken from an illustration in the Ellesmere Manuscript, this is the pipe played from horseback by the Miller in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales c. 1380 (Prologue, lines 565-6): 'A baggepipe wel koude he blowe and sowne, / 
And therwithal he broughte us out of towne'." Includes a .wav file of the impressive drone of these lovely pipes. 

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Chaucernet members, beware. The listserv is listed on the Publically Accessible Mailing Lists Page.  Turning Chaucerians into a product?  A direct marketer's and spammer's heaven.

Chaucer-Inspired & Organizations

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Chaucer Group Ltd: "Award Winning Project Management and Information System Services." They snagged the UK domain name first, I imagine.

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Chaucer Syndicates Limited, "a leading managing agency at Lloyd's and the principal operating subsidiary of Chaucer Holdings PLC. Chaucer manages three syndicates with underwriting capacity of £257 million for the 1999 year of account. The Chaucer syndicates provide direct and reinsurance capacity in the major Lloyd's markets: motor, marine (inc. aviation) and non-marine."

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Chaucer Care Limited, specializing in residential care for the elderly.

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) Chaucer Technology School, Canterbury, Kent and its very tasteful website.

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) The website for Chaucer College, Canterbury, has a number of photos available, as well as information in Japanese. 

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) West Bay Properties, Marin County, California, sold a home at 6 Chaucer Court for $305,500.00 in October 1997, which certainly has appreciated since then. 

Food, Coffee Shops,  Eateries, & B&B's

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) The Bargetto Winery (Saratoga, CA) offers "Chaucer's" wines:  

  • "These elegant dessert-style wines are produced from 100% pure fruit, without the addition of artificial flavors. The distinct taste of these wines can be enjoyed in the tradition of Medieval England. In the spirit of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, experience these unique wines as a pilgrimmage [sic] in sensory delight.

    Drink what the professionals believe to be the best: Chaucer's wines were awarded 61 gold medals and a total of 161 Medals from 1972-1998!"

Bookshops & Libraries

SquiggleE0A5.gif (860 bytes) The Chaucer Head Bookshop, Stratford-upon-Avon: The Chaucer Head is the red-brick building in the middle, next to Nash's House/New Place (Shakespeare's "Deathplace").  When Shakespeare lived next door-but-one our building was the home of Julius Shaw, a friend and witness to the great man's will."

Travel and Pilgrimage


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How to Document
Print & Electronic Sources:
The Chaucer Pedagogy
Documentation Primer


 

Chaucer Pedagogy | The Electronic Canterbury Tales | Chaucer Metapage

  © 1998-2005 Daniel T. Kline & The Kankedort Page All rights reserved

This page was last revised on 12.04.06.