"The Canterbury Blogs:

Reconfiguring Real, Ideal, and Possible Selves within Time"

By Andrea Ellickson, The Canterbury Blogs

    The growing phenomenon of “blogs” is a new way to connect, communicate, and create. As the team title suggests, this generation is making the leap from The Canterbury Tales to The Canterbury Blogs. From the fourteenth century to the twenty first century much of the format, medium, language, and social circumstance of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales get lost in translation. However, one factor remains constant – the identities of the Canterbury characters are still relevant and easily relatable. Moving from books to blogs, Middle English to Blog Slang, pages to posts, and an English pilgrimage to a Seville April Festival, the Canterbury Blogs Project at UCSB modernizes the original text to engage, entertain, and promote understanding for a new audience. A blog is a model of identity. Neither static, nor incomprehensible, the construction of blogs relates to the construction of identities. The blogging and social networking site, Livejournal, provides the tools and virtual space to construct and re-construct identity. Blogs reduce the richness and complexity of identity (including memory, personality, emotion, opinions, and social connections) into reverse chronological journal entries, photos, emoticons, page layout, color options, comments, avatars, and so on. Through this simplified identity model, we can gain greater understanding of the immense complexity of identity and social interactions. As researcher Susan Stern states, blogs are "somewhat protected spaces for reconfiguring actual, possible, and ideal selves in various arrangements" (Stern, 108). In order to answer the question, “Who are you?” one must consider what the person chooses to reveal, exaggerate, or keep hidden. The four team members each took on two characters to construct. The Canterbury characters with their respective tales included are: The Host, The Pardoner, The Miller, The Monk, The Knight, The Wife of Bath, The Reeve, and The Summoner. The Canterbury Blogs provides an engaging modern supplement to The Canterbury Tales.

    Similar to Chaucer’s choice to write the Canterbury Tales in the vernacular language of fourteenth century England, our project team chose to write the Canterbury Blogs in the vernacular language of modern day blogs. The use of the vernacular allows readers to understand a text in a modern context. Using common language makes dialogues between characters more relatable. Tracking the many interactions scattered within the twenty four Canterbury Tales greatly benefits from this format. Although some of the meaning may be lost because of the translation from Middle English to blog slang, the Canterbury Blogs acts as a helpful supplement to the original text, not as a replacement of the original text.  Looking closely at the Miller’s blog (i.e. “savage_brute”), readers will notice the use of terms such as “flame war” and “mod me down.” According to the article, “Blog Lingo Definitions,” a “flame war” is a heated and pointless argument between a few specific bloggers, where the “long-running public battle is more about the fun of fighting than it is about the substance of the debate” (Leibowitz). This terminology captures the rivalry between the Miller and the Reeve in the Canterbury Tales. Attacking each other both directly through their comments and indirectly through their tales, the Miller and Reeve are in a “flame war” for trivial reasons. The Reeve’s (i.e. “osewaldz_estate”) comments, such as “hear that, miller?” and “GO READ MY TALE,” make apparent the mockery of each other’s occupations originally written more subtly into the characters’ stories. Additionally, the phrase “mod me down” loosely defined as “hate me if you must,” captures the Miller’s confidence, bluntness, and provoking manner (Leibowitz). Furthermore, the intentional grammar and syntax mistakes add a sense of authenticity to the content. By utilizing common blog slang, literature better reaches another audience – modern day bloggers. As blogging is a growing phenomenon, the Canterbury Blogs Project adapts to the present and the future. New ways of interpreting and translating literature must continue to be developed in order to keep dated texts alive and relevant to the current audience. Similar to Chaucer’s innovative choice of Middle English over Latin, the Canterbury Blogs innovative choice of Blog Slang over Middle English allows for fresh insight into a text.

    Unlike the Canterbury Tales, the Canterbury Blogs is not just limited to identity formation through language. Livejournal provides various tools to construct identity visually. As this is a very image-based culture, choices of color, page layout, and so on are easily identifiable markers of identity. The “General Prologue” to the Canterbury Tales was a perfect match for an appearance-based project, since Chaucer significantly details each character’s appearance to reveal character flaws. Similarly, one glance at a blog’s surface without delving into the content already signals certain character traits. As researcher Susan Stern suggests, identity formation is revealed through Bloggers’ “decisions about what to reveal, exaggerate, and omit in their online communication” (Stern, 97). Through paying close attention to the various aspects of a blog’s design, readers can examine the self-projected identity. Due to the space constraints of this paper and since my portion of the team project specifically consisted of constructing the Miller’s and the Monk’s blogs, focus will be mainly on these two characters rather than on all eight completed blogs.

    First of all, The Miller in the Canterbury Tales is described as a brutish drunkard. The tale he tells is filled with crude humor, lusty affairs, and a mockery of both the educated and simpletons. Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" was intended for a lower class audience and is a "quite" or pay back to the previous chivalrous "Knight's Tale." The Miller's blog is modeled on the aspects of his personality that are presented in the “General Prologue” of the Canterbury Tales. The bright orange background of his blog represents his attention-catching, humorous, and somewhat revolting nature. The profile picture/avatar of the angled Miller Genuine Draft bottle matches his personality by emphasizing his masculinity, drunken demeanor, pride, and obviously his name and occupation. The screen name “savage_brute” reflects his exaggeration of manliness. He even has a picture in his Livejournal Scrapbook of the ram trophy he won as a (fake) Wrestling Champion of Southwark, England. The page format places his posts completely center with no distractions on either side, which represents his self-centeredness. His emoticons are upbeat and energetic, matching his personality and speech. Many of his posts contain provoking, yet simple language. The Miller is very straightforward, since he does not mask his flaws. He seems to self-project his actual self (with some proud exaggerations), rather than a touched up ideal self. Many of the important aspects of the Miller’s personality can be seen without reading any of the page content. This identity reduction and simplification allows readers to focus more on the implications of the content and interactions, rather than on keeping the character’s diverse identities straight.

   Once again, the Monk’s blog models the personality presented in “The General Prologue” to the Canterbury Tales. The Monk in the Canterbury Tales is described as having qualities and interests opposite to the image of a typical monk. He is an avid hunter and property overseer. He enjoys gourmet meals, lavish fur coats, and expensive jewelry. And yet, the characters of the Canterbury Tales still seem to treat him with the reverence deserving of a monk. The monk seems in denial of his hypocrisy. Also, rather than telling creative tales, he only tells short, well-known tales of tragedy. The Monk's blog is filled with specific indicators of his identity. The dark and slightly disturbing background reflects his preference for dark tragedies. In the heading, the images of an animal skull and an odd fish trapped in a jar reflect his perversion of religious values. The image of a stack of books and feather pens correlate to his out-dated and clichéd tales of tragedy, such as the Genesis story. The profile picture/avatar of a fierce greyhound in pursuit represents his distorted priorities. Hunting is first and foremost in his life, followed by God and religious beliefs. Also, the screen name “huntermonk” highlights this contradiction in identity. His language is educated and stiff, which is captured by his voice in the posts. His emoticons are usually contemplative, depressed, or enthralled. He also has a competitive edge in some of his posts, reflecting his hunter attitude. His tales are centered on religion, yet his blog's appearance indicates his hypocrisy. His actions and appearances do not match his words. He seems to be mixing self-projections of an idealized self and an actual self. Constructing blogs allows for more understanding of the various configurations of actual, possible, and ideal selves.

    All team members attempted to capture the “voice” specific to each character. Having easily recognizable voices paired with a profile picture enables quick comprehension of the source of the comments. The reader could either mentally call upon the link between the personality and the words, or could actually click on the hypertext link to the profile page of the character. This allows for a speedy refresh of character history and identity that would otherwise be a tedious process in a physical book format. With a clear understanding of each character’s identity, the dialogues between them take on greater significance and clarity.

    Livejournal not only promotes a model of identity, but also a model of social interaction. The team tried to stay completely true to the social interactions weaved throughout the original Canterbury Tales. Although it seems somewhat unlikely that strangers would suddenly all meet in a virtual chat room, engage in a competition to tell tales during a train ride, and then meet at the Seville April Fair, the various aspects of this social interaction are still drawn from reality. People generally join groups that share similar interests. The Livejournal community, “CB_Pilgrims,” brings people from various backgrounds together within a virtual space because of a common interest – the trip to La Feria de Abril in Seville. In an attempt to modernize the pilgrimage to Canterbury, the Canterbury Blogs project integrated this modern day Seville festival. For both the Canterbury pilgrimage and the Seville festival, springtime, heightened social contact, and travel are key aspects. Like the pilgrimage, the festival is a unifying force, integral to bringing together a diverse range of characters. Furthermore, the festival is set for a certain time after Holy Week, which integrates the subtle religious connection in the Canterbury Tales. The Livejournal community page provides a virtual space that allows for this construction of social interaction motivated by common interested. Furthermore, it promotes an option for uniting the virtual world with the physical world as the characters will presumably meet in Seville at the end of their journey.

    However, this could pose a problem for the ideal, actual, and possible selves Bloggers construct. What if these models do not match the reality? One example the team discussed was, what if the Knight was simply a Renaissance enthusiast playing with a possible self, and was nothing like the personality he constructed in the blog? Either the model would have to be altered to match reality, or the model would influence reality to change (to a certain extent). Researcher Susan Stern seems to suggest that the latter is possible, since blogs are a space to experiment with an identity that could lead to an incorporation of actual and possible selves (Stern, 108). The blog is, for the most part, a safe space to experiment within a simulated social environment within the constraints of time. The time and date attached to each post allows for a progressive reflection of personal growth. The Livejournal format further promotes experimentation by allowing Bloggers control over the viewing parameters, choosing between self only, friends only, or everyone. Information can be deleted, hidden, or updated. Blogs have the “manipulatability” essential to a model, as defined by the book Humanities Computing (McCarty, 31). A model has the power to not only represent and simulate reality, but also can reconfigure reality based on new insight from manipulating parameters.

    Returning to the idea of identity construction within time, the Canterbury Blogs project examines time in two formats – the standard linear timeline and the reverse chronological posts on Livejournal. The “Tripping Out to Seville Timeline” was created using the Timeline 2.0 software, originally designed for teacher and researcher presentations. In a very accessible and concise format, users can scroll across the timeline that spans the forty-eight hours of travel, during which the modernized Canterbury Tales are told. Each icon represents a post made by a particular character. Clicking the icon leads to a title, exact time, summary, and screenshot of the post. This format offers an outsider’s look at the Canterbury Blogs since it is more objective, organized, and a brief summary. Users can visualize an overview of the tales’ order and the temporal movement of the characters’ trip to Seville in the span of two days. Comparatively, the “Friends Page” on Livejournal places every single post of all the characters in reverse chronological order within a single scrollable page. This timeline format is an insider’s look at the Canterbury Blogs and promotes an intense sense of community. Furthermore, because of the reverse chronological order, the newest posts are on top. This reflects the current culture’s drive to be socially up-to-date. Although it places focus on the current self, users can easily scroll down to view a personal history and a documented progression. As previously mentioned, personal growth is made more meaningful because of the visual documentation of time. Bloggers can be a witness to their own identity progression over time. Unlike the simple linear timeline, the “Friends Page” is much more personalized since each post is attached to an individual blog. Ideally, our team wanted there to be a direct link to the blog posts in the simple timeline, but due to the Timeline 2.0 program constraints that was not possible. By comparing these two timeline formats, users gain a greater understanding of the importance of time in relation to identity.

    In order for works of literature to stay relevant, engaging, and influential, the original works must be supplemented by modern day mediums. The Canterbury Blogs demonstrates a prototype of modernizing a model. Identity and social interactions can be better understood through the blog and timeline formats. Models are not just representations that can be manipulated. But rather models can influence change in reality as the possible and the actual collide. True innovation rests at these points of collision. As students of the English 149 class, we have witnessed sparks from these inspiring collisions.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Trans. Vincent F. Hopper.  New York:Barron’s, 1948.

Livejournal. Six Apart. 13 Feb 2008 <http://www.livejournal.com/>

Leibowitz, Wanda. “Blog Lingo definitions: Putting Blog Slang Terms in Plain English.” Associated Content, Inc. 18 September 2008. 16 March 2008. <http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/60077/blog_lingo_definitions_putting_blog.html?page=2>

McCarty, Willard. Humanities Computing. Palgrave MacMillan, 2005. p.20-37, 37-72.

Stern, Susannah. “Producing Sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship.” Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Edited by David Buckingham. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 95-118.

Bibliography by Andrea Ellickson