February 26, 2020
CANTERBURY CRUSH:
Canterbury Tales is first major literary work developed as an app: A University of Saskatchewan-led international team has produced the first web and mobile phone app of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales--the first major literary work augmented by new scholarship, in any language, presented in an app. (USASK RESEARCH PROFILE AND IMPACT, Feb 2, 2020, University of Saskatchewan)
"We want the public, not just academics, to see the manuscript as Chaucer would have likely thought of it--as a performance that mixed drama and humor," said University of Saskatchewan (USask) English professor Peter Robinson, leader of the project."We have become convinced, over many years, that the best way to read the Tales is to hear it performed--just as we imagine that Chaucer himself might have performed it at the court of Richard II."The free app is the first edition in a planned series. The app features a 45-minute audio performance of the General Prologue of the Tales--the masterpiece work by the most important English writer before Shakespeare--along with the digitized original manuscript. While listening to the reading, users have access to supporting content such as a translation in modern English, commentary, notes and vocabulary explaining Middle English words used by Chaucer.
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2020 12:00 AM