Pilgrim’s Prize

Dear Medieval scholars and Canterbury Tales enthusiasts. I would like to draw your attention to an online project based out of the University of Edinburgh. Pilgrim’s Prize is an adaptation and modernization of The Canterbury Tales told through online media. It reimagines each of the twenty-four characters (including Chaucer and Harry Bailey) as contemporary figures participating in an online story telling contest.

Premise

Harry Bailey is the managing editor of rPilgrim Literary: a new web-based magazine launched last April. The website includes a forum, where one serendipitous night a motley group of readers found themselves conversing amongst each other. Harry decided that he would host a tale-telling contest in honour of the magazine launch. Pilgrim’s Prize was born. Along with his webmaster, Chaucer, Harry has been coordinating this year-long contest, which has seen stories told through a variety of media, including video, text-messaging, live Tweeting, an advice column, and spoken word poetry.

Objective

The creators of Pilgrim’s Prize are endeavouring to explore the potential of multi-media and hypertext in retelling The Canterbury Tales. It seeks to bring a new audience to the medieval masterpiece through open access, mainstream media. We also hope it will serve as an auxiliary teaching tool for undergraduate and introductory courses on medieval literature and The Canterbury Tales.

Pilgrim’s Prize Sitemap

New content is posted every Wednesday. It alternates between the prologues—posted on the Forum, and the tales—published on the Blog. The Artist page features bios of each of the characters, along with links to their social media accounts. Finally, the About page contains biographies of the creators.

We hope that you explore Pilgrim’s Prize and follow along in the rest of this literary pilgrimage through the Internet. If you have any questions or would like to contact the creators, please emailpilgrimsprize@gmail.com or use the contact form on the website: www.pilgrimliterary.com.

We can also be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PilgrimsPrize

And Twitter: @PilgrimsPrize

All best wishes,

Jessica Legacy and the Pilgrim’s Prize team

Jessica Legacy

Woflson Foundation Recipient

PhD Candidate

University of Edinburgh

Profile

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in

Scotland, with registration number SC005336.