My essay, “The Chaucerian Translator,” now appears in Communication, Translation, and Community in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period: New Cultural, Historical, and Literary Perspectives, ed. Albrecht Classen, Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture Vol. 26 (De Grutyer, 2022), 233-52.
ABSTRACT
The Chaucerian narrator could easily and perhaps more readily be called the Chaucerian translator. He calls the vast majority of his works “translaciouns” in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women (LGW) and in his Retraction to The Canterbury Tales. This self-conception deserves more critical consideration as does the process of development that the Chaucerian translator undergoes from Chaucer’s early to later works. Indeed, remarks by the Chaucerian translator throughout Chaucer’s corpus give readers some ideas about how Chaucer the author wanted his audience to perceive how he conceived of the work of translation. First, the Chaucerian translator—especially when acting as a compiler—is dependent upon his authors and their authority. Second, the Chaucerian translator may act as a fidus interpres (“a faithful translator”) without translating verbum pro verbo (“word for word”). Third, when Chaucer the author ventriloquizes his pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales, such as the Nun’s Priest and the Parson, deliberate mistranslations may serve the purposes of satire or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, sincerity, for a multilingual audience. Finally, the Chaucerian translator, whatever his rhetoric might otherwise imply, ultimately takes responsibility for his translations, which he believes may have a damning or salvific effect for his soul, if we as the audience take his remarks in the Retraction seriously. This is a significant development in the Chaucerian translator’s persona near the chronological end of Chaucer’s literary career.
SANCTUARY POET 