Citation
Blake, M. (2004), "Canterbury Tales online", The Electronic Library, Vol. 22 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2004.26322aag.009
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Canterbury Tales online
Canterbury Tales onlinewww.bl.uk
New digital versions of original fifteenth century texts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are now available online. The Canterbury Tales, which was first printed by William Caxton in the 1470s and 1480s, is celebrated for the variety of language and acute observation of characters.
Web users around the world will be able to view the first editions of this important work in greater detail than ever before and appreciate Caxton's skill and craft. Visitors to the British Library's Web site can either view each edition individually or compare them, seeing the delightful woodcuts depicting Chaucer's pilgrims in the second edition. They may also read a transcription of each page of the full text of both editions.
A wealth of background is provided containing information about Caxton's life and times, later modifications to the texts, and the process whereby the two books were digitized. The Library's Web site depicting the two Chaucer editions has been designed by the consultancy Oyster Partners to offer detailed information for scholars and general visitors alike. The transcriptions of each page are provided by a link to the Canterbury Tales Project Web site at De Montfort University, Leicester (www.cta.dmu.ac.uk/Caxtons).
The work comprises 24 stories written in Middle English, told by pilgrims en route from London to the shrine of St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. Many will remember the Canterbury Tales from school as well as the recent BBC adaptations. Bawdy descriptions of bodily functions (as in The Miller's Tale) might form part of their appeal but they are also celebrated for the timelessness of the characters and the range of emotions that are as relevant today as 600 years ago (such as The Wife of Bath's Tale).
The digitization was carried out by a team from Keio University in Japan as part of the HUMI (Humanities Media Interface) Project. Staff from Keio used digital photography to produce high-resolution images (1,300 in all). The quality and resolution will make it possible to conduct detailed typographical analyses of the two editions of the Canterbury Tales. The text transcription was carried out by staff of the Canterbury Tales Project at De Montfort University.