Advertisement
Videos

Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in Middle English

Here are some resources for those who want to hear how Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales sounded in the original Middle English.

First, a reading of the Prologue from The Canterbury Tales in Middle English accompanied by the text:

Advertisement

In this video, language expert and Youtuber Maria Athena gives her version of the Prologue:

Murray McGillivray reads the first 541 lines from the work:

Professor Jess B. Bessinger, Jr. reads the General Prologue and the concluding retraction of The Canterbury Tales:

Advertisement

Here are a couple more audio files from Soundcloud;

For more audio files, check out The Criyng and the Soun: Chaucer Audio Files on Baragona’s Literary Resources, which includes excerpts from Chaucer’s works read by professors.

Finally, L.D. Benson at Harvard University has created the page Teach Yourself to Read Chaucer’s Middle English with 10 lessons.

Advertisement