Zooming into Chaucer's English

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a foundational literary text, but one that is hard to teach because it was written in a language that is not quite modern English, nor quite a foreign language. It thus resists the kind of traditional, classroom-based instruction appropriate to Latin, Old English, or modern languages. While language instruction is vital to appreciating “Chaucer’s English,” this can quickly occupy time needed for the interpretive and critical discussions at the core of literary study. This project addresses the challenge by creating online multimedia resources—videos, podcasts, and hypertext modules—that support students’ improving their Middle English independently, thereby saving class time for poetic appreciation and thematic discussion. By enabling in-person or remote instruction, these resources would also provide structures of continuity that transcend particular learning environments.