Geoffrey Chaucer: A Near Contemporary of Malory :: Canterbury Tales Literature Essays

Geoffrey Chaucer: A near contemporary of Malory Many websites contain information on the life and works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Most of these websites provide useful information, timelines, and miscellaneous facts about Chaucer. The Geoffrey Chaucer Page is a very helpful website that contains a brief note on Chaucer and provides a timeline of the important events which occurred during Chaucer’s lifetime . A better description of Chaucer and his works is given by Anniina Jokinen’s website, Luminarium . It is an organized source of data on Chaucer’s life and works, and has a medieval yule carol playing on the Chaucer homepage . Columbia’s Electronic Encyclopedia offers a less impressive description of Chaucer, and does not adequately analyze his works . Librarius offers excellent insight on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales . These four websites offer us a window into the life and works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The luminarium website links to a â€Å"Geoffrey Chaucer† website which is impressive and covers many topics. The homepage has the anonymous medieval yule carol â€Å"Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella† playing and offers easy access to the other portions of the site through six labeled links. The creator of the website, Anniina Jokinen, includes her email address and source citation for her music at the bottom of the page along with other useful citation information. Clicking on the â€Å"Quotes† link leads to a page of notable lines from the text of the Canterbury Tales. The actual texts containing these quotations can be found by clicking on the link labeled â€Å"The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer.† The information provided by clicking on these links is broad. The website offers everything from general notes on Chaucer’s literary works, to audio excerpts, and translations of passages (which are difficult to read in the original Middle English). The onl y major flaw of the website is a link that goes to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia website for information on Chaucer’s life. The little information provided by the Columbia Encyclopedia website does not stand up to the Luminarium pages. This was a poor choice for an external link on an excellent website < www.luminarium.org>. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia website offers a small, poorly organized description of Chaucer’s life and work.