The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the most significant landmarks for English literature, ranking alongside John Milton’s Paradise Lost in terms of its importance. Chaucer was the first medieval author to use English as his writing medium, and the quality of his writing gives a unique insight into medieval English society. It is a long time since I attempted to read the prologue. At the time, I found it quite tedious trying to comprehend the middle English language. Rediscovering The Canterbury Tales, while reviewing the CD‐ROM, has been a pleasurable experience.
The CD‐ROM offers the reader a Middle English version and a modern translation of the Tales, which are fully searchable. The modern or middle English versions of the text are not really suited to extensive study, as too many hours spent gazing at a computer screen is guaranteed to give one eyestrain. The CD’s key function will be to help students understand the text and dissect its meaning.
The formidable array of support features available on the CD include a section on Chaucer’s life and the period in which he lived, teacher’s notes, literary criticism, and a glossary and pronunciation guide to Middle English. There is also an overview of each tale and a description of each of the characters. The literary criticism section is excellent. The academics, Claire Round and Ben Lawrence from Warwick University, have critiqued some of The Canterbury Tales’ key themes, such as the “Role of the church” in medieval English society and “Nobility and courtly love”. Regardless of whether the student is seeking an understanding of the entire work or examining Chaucer’s characters, the CD‐ROM is an invaluable learning tool.
Some aspects of the CD‐ROM are disappointing. Despite its multimedia nature, the background music and images are rather more incidental than of importance to the pilgrims’ tales. Possibly more use could have been made of images and music. The Internet listings available on the CD‐ROM provide only a small selection of the Web sites which provide information on The Canterbury Tales. This is a rather strange anomaly, as the bibliography in the same research section is comprehensive. Finally, the pagination on the CD‐ROM is not designed for extensive reading.
There is a myriad of alternative ways of studying The Canterbury Tales. The Electronic Literature Foundation (ELF), which allows free access to the Middle English version and modern translation of The Canterbury Tales on the Internet, has the additional facility of enabling users to change their pagination preferences. This makes it easier for the reader to browse the text. There are audio and video versions of the Tales, and it is also available as an e‐book. The e‐book version gives a PC screen the appearance of a virtual paper book, with pages turning.
The CD‐ROM is a wonderful educational tool which will be a great boon to school and undergraduate students studying the work. However, the US$149 cost is somewhat prohibitive. This may reflect the CD‐ROM’s production costs, but for the educational market at which the CD‐ROM is aimed, it is an expensive toy. As a crude comparison, a CD to help children aged ten and upwards explore the world and literature of Geoffrey Chaucer is available at US$14.95. An audio book version, film, and the written text itself are all available at far less cost. This CD is for educational institutions that do not have to deal with practical realities such as budgets.
