Chaucer: Life and Times (review)

MEDIA REVIEW Chaucer: Life and Times. CD-ROM. Woodbridge, CT. Primary Source Media Limited, 1995. Michael Delahoyde Washington State University Although no Luddite, I include myselfamong those ttaditionalists and technoskeptics fot whom the "desktop" will always be a literal one, annoyingly cluttered with actual sctaps and no "scrapbook" and where that confounded electric box will continue primarily to be in my way when I'm ttying to research such dire mattets as where precisely the Patdonet catties his pouch ofdocuments and what was the Book ofthe Lion. Nevertheless, I am impressed with what is so fat the definitive Chaucet CD-ROM, developed in England by Cristina Ashby, Geoff Couldrey, Susan Dickson, et al. and recently advertised in the U.S. This resource tool does not fot me supersede the only item of any value in my Last Will and Testament, but this may be due merely to the eleven-year head-start my Riverside Chaucer has had towatds heavy annotation. Fot using the CD-ROM, the developets recommend 8 Mb RAM (but 4 will do), a 486 DX/50 processot (whatevet that means), and Windows 3. 1 ot highen The Uset's Guide, a lucid and manageable 25 pages, provides efficient insttuctions fot installation and fot navigating through the materials which on the screen appear, appealingly, as books placed on awooden desk oras othet tools in a dtawet below, in shelves alongside the dtawet, and in cubbyholes at the back ofthe desktop . Most impottantly, the Riverside Chaucer serves as the centetpiece, and clicking on this image brings up the complete wotks as they appeat in the 1987 Houghton Mifflin tome. An assortment offonts is also available fot viewing the text. Ttanslations ofthe majot wotks are accessible eithet instead of, ot next to, the Middle English versions. Overviews ofthe wotks comprise anothet desktop resource: these ate not the Riverside ones, but instead tathet general and sometimes disappointing petspectives such as "Chaucer the Unfinished" an arbittarily titled piece assessing , among othet mattets, Chaucet's status in the English poetic context and his tendency towards the dtamatic; or "Women and Marriage in the Canterbury Tales"; ot the then seemingly redundant "Matriage? No Thank You," which quickly and enigmatically enumetates fout CTwomen who attempt to eschew matrimony. The "Life and Times" discussion is mote valuable, providing a bioFALL 1998 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 75 gfaphical sketch ofChaucet and some historical and litetary context; but this too seems skimpy ultimately, focusing only on the long-established biogtaphical factoids. Clicking the last item on the desktop, a small houtglass, brings a time line, a useful ifminimal plotting ofChaucet family history amid primarily 14thcentury political, religious, and cultutal events. Beneath the desktop and tucked into shelves and the desk dtawet are numerous othet materials, including a "Glossary" similar to that ofthe Riverside, and a tutorial titled "How To Read a Medieval Manuscript," which, when one clicks on the spectacles icon, discusses litetacy, the histoty of printing, and textual problems . A "Critical Essays" book contains 17 attides with pop-up footnotes, mosdy the oft-anthologized old chestnuts such as Geotge Lyman Kittredge's "Chaucet's Discussion ofMarriage" from Modern Philology, 191 1-12; Morton W Bloomfield's 1957 PMLA article, "Distance and Predestination in Troilus and Criseyde"; Mary Carruthets' 1979 PMLA article, "The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions"; Jill Mann's "Troilus' Swoon" from a 1 979 Chaucer Review, and othet articles from such luminaries as Tatlock and Wimsatt. A "Furthet Reading" list provides seminal resources through 1994: bibliogtaphies and othet print sources on specific subjects such as alchemy, the Btadshaw shift, manuscripts, the Peasants' Revolt, and women. More exciting, ofcoutse, is the inclusion ofvisual materials, such as a map ofthe majot English pilgrim routes (from London, west to Winchestet and southeast to Rochestet and Cantetbury), which one views in the mannet of an unfurling scroll and which is linked to pop-up text and images. The CD-ROM's collection ofpictures, from the Huntington, Bodleian, and British Libtaries, from the Tate, and othet galleries and museums, includes images ofthe relevant cathedrals and kings, pilgrim badges, frontispieces, and, most delightfully, the famed Ellesmere illuminations ofthe pilgrims (something the Riverside cannot do). Also included are the Caxton...