Sir Orfeo
In this Middle English performance with harp and singing by the Zaerr sisters, we have a happy ending to the Orpheus and Eurydice story. The full romance is performed here with Modern English subtitles as an added feature to this on-stage performance.
Sir Thopas: Two Readings
One of the two tales told by the pilgrim Chaucer. Unfortunately the Host, who judges the tales, finds this tale by Geoffrey not worth a fly, especially because of its rhyme doggerel. Chaucer's droll burlesque of the worst in popular romances in his day.
Specimens of Middle English Pronunciation
Here Alex Jones introduces various Middle English poetic tales and how to pronounce them in correct academic Middle English. Booklet only available with CD orders, not download orders.
Ted Irving Reads Old English
This CD combines former audiocassettes Selected Readings in Old English: The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, Deor, and The Seafarer and Favorite Passages from Beowulf.
The Book of the Duchess
Chaucer, as usual, is burning the midnight oil, reading until he grows sleepy. He dreams of a knight dressed in black who has recently lost his beloved. Chaucer's tribute to his friend John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, after the death of his wife Blanche.
The Clerk’s Tale
The story of patient Griselda and her seemingly inhuman husband Walter, this is a tale Chaucer borrowed from Petrarch by way of Boccaccio.
The Digby MS: The Conversion of St. Paul
The 2011 addition to the ongoing series of Middle English plays peformed live at the Kalamazoo International Congress on Medieval Studies, this play is performed in the language of the later fifteenth-century
The Fox and the Wolf
One of the fables from the Old French Reynardian tradition written in early Middle English.
The Franklin’s Tale
A Breton lay, this tale of fin amor in marriage puts knight, squire, lady, and clerk under some pressure to behave properly. Are vows between lovers/spouses broken, or does this marriage look even stronger by the end of the tale?
The General Prologue
In his General Prologue, Chaucer speaks to us in his voice as one of the 29 pilgrims on their way from Southwark to Canterbury Cathedral to see the relics of St. Thomas à Becket. He introduces his fellow pilgrims one by one or sometimes in groups.
The Grafted Tree: Medieval Tales with Harp
After a brief passage in Middle English, Linda Marie Zaerr on vielle, accompanied by her sister, Laura Zaerr on gothic harp, performs these Middle English romances in a Modern English translation. Not a Chaucer Studio recording.
The House of Fame
Nick Havely's edition of this slightly unfinished, early sci-fi work by Chaucer, this poem shows Chaucer's sense that he will be among the great poets, worthy to have a pillar with the greats in the heavenly House of Fame, home of our verbal reputation.
The House of Fame
Chaucer worked through all the known genres of his time, more or less, and this is his example of an ironic journey through the heavens in the talons of a talkative eagle, an early sci-fi journey for the frightened, plump poet.
The House of Fame
Nick Havely's edition of this slightly unfinished, early sci-fi work by Chaucer, this poem shows Chaucer's sense that he will be among the great poets, worthy to have a pillar with the greats in the heavenly House of Fame, home of our verbal reputation.
The House of Fame
Nick Havely's edition of this slightly unfinished, early sci-fi work by Chaucer. This poem shows Chaucer's sense that he will be among the great poets, worthy to have a pillar with the greats in the heavenly House of Fame, home of our verbal reputation.