Chaucer, Medieval Literature, and World Literature: An Interview with Professor Marion Turner

乔叟、中世纪文学及世界文学——玛丽恩·特纳教授访谈录, 张 炼 玛丽恩·特纳

I am pleased to share with you Zhang Lian’s interview with Marion Turner, J. R. R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. Her books include Chaucer: A European Life (2019), The Wife of Bath: A Biography (2023), Chaucerian Conflict: Languages of Antagonism in Late Fourteenth-Century London (2007), Chaucer Here and Now (2023), and A Handbook of Middle English Studies (2013). Her books have won many prizes, including the British Academy Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, the Medieval Institute’s Otto Grundler Prize, and the English Association’s Beatrice White Prize, and have often been picked as “best books of the year,” including by The New Yorker, BBC History Magazine, The Times, The Sunday Times, The New Statesman, and The Times Literary Supplement. She curated the major exhibition “Chaucer Here and Now” at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, which ran from December 8, 2023 to April 28, 2024.

Zhang Lian, Ph.D., is “One Hundred Talents Project” researcher at the School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. Her research fields are mainly medieval English literature and comparative literature. Email: zhanglian_hn@zju.edu.cn.

This interview appeared first as Zhang, Lian, and Marion Turner. “Chaucer, Medieval Literature, and World Literature: An Interview with Professor Marion Turner.”  Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Vol. 11. Ed. Tianhu Hao. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press, 2024: 191-202. We greatly appreciate the journal editors granting us permission to reproduce the interview.  

Zhang Lian: Professor Turner, thank you for accepting our invitation to talk with us on medieval literature and literary study in general. How did you become interested in medieval literature and devote decades to study it?

Marion Turner: I first read medieval literature in high school—in those days, everyone studying literature to an advanced level in the UK read Chaucer at high school. But it was at university that I really fell in love with medieval literature. I think it was for two reasons. First, it is just so varied. Medieval writers wrote in so many genres and forms, and were so experimental in the kinds of poetry they wrote. Later on, as the language became more standardized, particular poetic forms became dominant. But in the 14th century, the poetry of the Gawain-poet and of Chaucer were radically different from each other and equally fascinating. I loved the elegy Pearl, the tragic romance Troilus and Criseyde, and prose texts such as Mandeville’s Travels. Secondly, it is surprising. When I read Chaucer’s dream poem, The House of Fame, I was astonished to find that he was writing about writer’s block, about the limitations of the canon, about the power of reader response—things that many people would expect from modern texts, but that were in fact preoccupying medieval authors. When I read Hoccleve, I was moved and amazed to discover his poem about his own mental health. Medieval writing is so rich. And the more I studied, the more I fell in love with it.

Zhang: You speak many European languages. Did you learn these languages before or after you began your academic career? Was the mastering of multiple languages an impetus for your studies on medieval literature? Could you give us Chinese students and scholars any advice on learning European languages?

Turner: Well, first of all, I am really not a great linguist and I bet manypeople reading this are far more impressive than me in that area! I studied Latin to a high level at high school and have gone on reading and working on Latin texts and I also teach Old English. My French is okay and I have some Spanish and Italian—and in the past I studied some Arabic and some Japanese. Of course, romance languages are far easier for me than languages from other parts of the world—I found Japanese very hard! People from Anglophone countries are often bad linguists compared to many people from other parts of the world. Languages that I learnt as a child are much more embedded in my brain than languages that I picked up later. I do think that today we have a lot of tools with podcasts and other audio resources that are so helpful when trying to move between languages that sound very different, so I think that would be my advice—as well as formal study, watch TV programs and listen to audiobooks and podcasts to try to immerse yourself in the language you are studying.

Zhang: How would you see the role of multilingualism in medieval literature studies and world literature studies?

Turner: It is impossible to study medieval literature in a monolingual way. Chaucer was reading texts in French, Latin, and especially Italian, and he could not have written the poetry that he wrote without a deep knowledge of those languages. His poetry simply could not exist without the Tuscan poetry of Dante and Boccaccio. And all educated medieval men were multilingual—and educated women in England were at least bilingual (in French and English). So we need to think and read across borders to understand the world of medieval texts. Sticking with the example of Chaucer, he has become a global author in recent centuries—translated into multiple languages around the world, and influencing authors in many countries. It is so fascinating to see the different ways that varying cultures and traditions adapt medieval texts—the early 20th-century Chinese adaptations for instance!

Zhang: Yes, the Chinese adaptations are interesting. Chinese scholars were comparing Chaucer’s tales with Aesopian fables, Chinese yuyan (a writing style with a history of over two thousand years in China and often showing concern over political and social issues), and new Chinese fiction promoted by the social reformers in the early 20th century (related to literary, cultural and social modernization at the time). A multilingual study of medieval literature often involves with diverse literary genres and cultural values. Is your biography of Chaucer’s European life (Turner, 2019) a case in point?

Turner: To a certain extent, yes. In that biography, the contexts that I focus on most are European—both in terms of literary context and in terms of describing Chaucer’s own travels around Europe. It was encountering different literary forms that poets such as Boccaccio were using that enabled Chaucer to invent new forms in English. We can also see Chaucer engaging with other cultures: when he travelled to Navarre in 1366 (now a part of Spain, but then an independent country), he went to a country with vibrant Jewish and Muslim communities, and certainly encountered them. And when he translated his Treatise on the Astrolabe from Latin, he was aware that the Latin version was itself translated from an Arabic text by a Persian Jewish scholar. So he was aware of a culturally varied hinterland around his own work and life.

Zhang: Your handbook of Middle English studies (Turner, 2013) is organized around a set of key terms like “memory,” “race,” and “animality.” As these terms “demonstrate the engagement by literary scholars with current critical trends” (Turner, 2013: no page number), do they also promote inter-disciplinary study? Does it suggest that medieval studies is interdisciplinary?

Turner: Yes, I think that collection showcases interdisciplinarity in many ways. For instance, the whole third section is themed around “politics and places,” and includes chapters on areas such as city, class, nation, and church—all of which are profoundly rooted in history. Earlier in the book, there is a chapter on “material culture” that focuses on thinking about texts alongside the visual and history of art. There is a great chapter that engages closely with the environment (“Ecology”).

Zhang: Chinese scholars were also very interested in the social nature of Chaucer’s tales and imagined him as a sort of idealist criticizing the pilgrims and the backwardness of feudal churches and society. Is politics a major concern in your study of languages of antagonism in late 14th-century London (Turner, 2007)? How is your study different from Paul Strohm’s Social Chaucer (1989)?

Turner: I’m really interested in politics, and so was Chaucer—he writes a great deal about social and political formations and hierarchies, even though he famously avoids talking directly about contemporary politics. But he himself was embedded in civic and national politics—he was even himself a Member of Parliament. I don’t think he was an idealist, and it was very normal in his time to criticize the clergy! Paul Strohm’s Social Chaucer is undoubtedly one of the best books on Chaucer ever written, and we have worked closely together. Where we differ is that he ultimately sees the Canterbury Tales as a profoundly optimistic text about social possibility, whereas I emphasize more the struggles and conflicts within the pilgrim group. I think we’d both agree, though, that there was something politically radical and fascinating about the very idea of listening to such diverse voices in the Tales.

Zhang: Why did you say that Chaucer was “a player” (Turner, 2006: 13) in the medieval political world?

Turner: Chaucer did many jobs that were political—he was a Member of Parliament; he was a diplomat; he worked for the king and for great nobles. He had to negotiate competing interests, and had allies in different groups. So he had to be careful and subtle about not committing himself too radically to particular factions.

Zhang: Why is he more frank in his short poems, in which he refers directly to contemporary political figures and events? Does it have anything to do with the style of short poems? Many classical Chinese poems express the poets’ thoughts and feelings on current social affairs, and they were either concise or long and complicated.

Turner: Some of Chaucer’s short poems are written for a specific purpose—such as “The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse,” in which he is asking for his allowances to be renewed by the new king. So it is a poem with a specific occasional purpose, unlike most of his poetry. But in other short poems, although he refers to contemporary events or people, he is doing so obliquely, so it still varies.

Zhang: Let’s turn to your new book, the biography of the Wife of Bath (Turner, 2023). How does the creation of the Wife of Bath show that literary forms and lived experience affect each other? Are receptions and adaptations in literary history an important way of building this figure up?

Turner: The Wife of Bath is built out of many literary sources, including texts by Jerome and Ovid and, most importantly, the Roman de la Rose. But Chaucer makes crucial changes to those sources, so that the Wife makes sense in his own historical moment. This was a time when, in England, women could work outside the home, inherit and keep their inheritance, earn money, marry many times. The first half of my book focuses on Alison of Bath in her own historical moment, exploring literary and historical medieval women, and the second half then turns to the reception of this character across time, moving through ballads, Shakespeare, Voltaire, James Joyce, and Zadie Smith, among many others, to explore her influence across time.

Zhang: How is this biography “experimental?”1

Turner: It is a biography of someone who never existed, rather than a real person, and it is a biography not only of the character, but also of her afterlife—so it is a life that lasts over 600 years. And I interweave her fictional life with the lives of real medieval women. One inspiration is Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, which is also a kind of fictional biography spanning hundreds of years.

Zhang: “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” was introduced to China in the 1910s. Chinese scholars were promoting Chinese cultural reformation in order to modernize the old social and political systems. While the traditionalists were emphasizing the moral values of literature, scholars from the New Culture school called for a new literature developed from the Western mode. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” was read as either a moral sermon highlighting Confucian ethics or “human literature” expressing concerns over issues of women and marriage. The reception and translation of this tale thus reflect the complicated Chinese cultural development in the socially transitional period of the early 20th century. Has the reading of this tale also been an interpretive act with political and social effects in English/Western history?

Turner: Yes, her prologue and tale have been interpreted in many different ways often according to the interests of the interpreters. For example, in the 18th century, her prologue was heavily censored by Alexander Pope, who removed many of the references to sex and the body, so that his version is only half the length of the original. In Victorian children’s versions, the tale was altered, so that the rape was usually replaced with a less shocking kiss, or insult. Interpreters have always been anxious about the radical aspects of what the Wife of Bath was saying: many of the earliest scribes wrote extensive comments on manuscripts, arguing with the Wife, and trying to persuade readers not to take her seriously.

Zhang: Peter G. Beidler’s book on the Wife of Bath (1996) presents five critical views on the literary figure, exemplifying critical approaches including new historicism, Marxism, psychoanalytical criticism, deconstructionist criticism, and feminist criticism. Your biography of the Wife of Bath deals with her life and afterlife. What does the difference suggest about the development of medieval studies in the past three decades?

Turner: Medieval studies is a rich field, and there is room for many different approaches. But recently there has been a “biographical turn,” and also a renewed interest in thinking about forms of selfhood—I’m thinking of the work of, for example, Holly Crocker on female subjectivity, or Sebastian Sobecki on the indexical self. Increasingly there is also a great deal of work on medievalism and reception.

Zhang: Medievalism focuses on the reception, interpretation, and re-creation of the European Middle Ages in post-medieval cultures. Medieval studies is usually distinguished from medievalism study, but the distinction between the two has begun to blur. Could you please say something about the future development of medieval studies and medievalism studies? Leslie J. Workman thought that “medievalism will adopt more of the attitude of historicism and that medieval studies will adopt more of the approach and procedure of medievalism” (Utz & Workman, 1998: 444). What do you think about this?

Turner: Many scholars and students are increasingly interested in medievalism and there is some excellent work being done in this field. Medievalism can be studied by non-medievalists, of course, but my interest is in work that can engage with the medieval itself and put that in conversation with later interpretations. I think we can better understand medievalist productions if we know what the artists, authors, or film-makers are choosing to leave out and how they are inflecting their work. And my primary interest remains the medieval itself, and I do think that studying medieval literature is usually very different from studying medievalism.

Zhang: The Bodleian’s new exhibition, “Chaucer Here and Now,” is curated by you. I see on the webpage of this exhibition a few introductory words: “Misogynist. Feminist. Conservative. Radical. Respectful. Irreverent. Monocultural. Multicultural. Imperial. Domestic. English. European. Catholic. Protestant.”2 Do they tell the ways Chaucer has been viewed across time? How does this exhibition show that Chaucer is a dynamic figure remade in his life and afterlife?

Turner: Those words represent only some of the ways that Chaucer has been viewed across time. For instance, some people in the 16th century tried to imagine him as a proto-Protestant; Victorian editors linked him to the empire; 20th-century popularizers focused on him as irreverent and rude. There are so many different Chaucers across time. The exhibition looks at responses to Chaucer across six hundred years and more—from the earliest manuscript, produced around the time of Chaucer’s death in 1400, right up to the present day. It moves from folios to films, Caxton to the Cachoeira Tales, Anonymous to Zadie Smith. Dynamic is exactly the right word—we can trace so many different trends and changes in how Chaucer is viewed. Excitingly, today, Chaucer’s work is still very much alive and well, and the exhibition demonstrates how much is happening today: poems such as Telling Tales and A Double Sorrow; plays such as The Wife of Willesden; cartoons; television and film adaptations; translations into many languages. Students, writers, and artists alike remain fascinated and inspired by Chaucer’s poetry.

Zhang: So one theme of the exhibition is that literary canon changes with time?

Turner: I think there are two important points here. One, that as teachers who are introducing texts to students, it is really important not to be limited by an old-fashioned idea of the canon, which was overwhelmingly white and male. The canon has to change, which doesn’t necessarily mean throwing things out but rather bringing more things in. Two, our understanding of texts that have long been thought of as canonical changes across time.

Zhang: So that is why projects like global Chaucers, women in Chaucer, children in Chaucer, and orientalism in medieval studies keep coming out? How do these projects change the field of traditional medieval studies?

Turner: Medieval studies has changed enormously over recent decades, so work on sex and gender has long been central to what we do, particularly since the 1980s. Work on race and the global has also been increasingly influential over the past, say, twenty years or so in particular. It is really excitingto see the kind of work that is currently being done all over the world.

Zhang: Did you encounter anything interesting when you were collecting these different responses to Chaucer?

Turner: Well, yes—I think they are all absolutely fascinating! Some eras want to censor Chaucer; others to characterize him as bawdy and vulgar. Individual poems and novels demonstrate really specific and thoughtful responses to Chaucer right across time. Chaucer moves people in different ways, but his work remains extraordinarily powerful.

Zhang: I know that the Chinese translations of “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” and “The Pardoner’s Tale” by Sun Yuxiu (1913a, 1913b, 1916) have been curated for this exhibition. In fact, I copied the translations from Zhejiang University Library. In addition to Chinese translations, what other languages do you include in the exhibition?

Turner: Other languages in the exhibition include Farsi, German, French, Hebrew, Korean, Esperanto, Latin, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, and Ukrainian.

Zhang: Chinese translations of Chaucer and other Western literary works have influenced the 20th-century Chinese literary history. The themes, styles, and writing techniques of the Western works have promoted Chinese literary modernization. Thus translations of Chaucer into foreign languages form part of world literature. Does this indicate that Chaucer has become a global author in the past few centuries?

Turner: I suppose what I find interesting is that it works both ways. Chaucer’s works, in the 14th century, were world literature—born out of deep reading and encounters with texts from other cultures, written in other languages. Sometimes he was retelling stories familiar to people all over the world, transmitted across trading routes in complicated ways. Since the 18th century, his work has been translated into other languages, seeping back into diverse cultures, and gaining new life in different contexts. So I think he has always been a global author.

Zhang: One example is the frame narrative Chaucer adopts in the Canterbury Tales. The influences of Decameron, Arabian Nights, and Panchatantra from ancient India are obvious.

Turner: The tale collection is an important genre in many cultures, yes. It is interesting to think about the sources that Chaucer drew on, but also what he did that was distinctive. So, for example, I’m sure he knew the Decameron and found it a generative model, but what really matters is the crucial change that Chaucer made: while Boccaccio’s tale-tellers are all of the same, high social class, Chaucer’s are much more varied and socially diverse. By looking at sources, we can see how radical and surprising Chaucer’s choice was: he was suggesting that we should listen to all kinds of voices, not just the voices of the powerful. That was a radical socio-political idea, as well as a fascinating aesthetic choice.

Zhang: Thank you for your time and valuable insights.

Turner: My pleasure.

  1. Marion Turner, Margaret Chowning, Virginia Trimble, and David A. Weintraub, “Interview:
    In Dialogue: Writing Women’s History,” Princeton University Press, 27 Mar. 2023, https://
    press.princeton.edu/ideas/in-dialogue-writing-womens-history, accessed 19 Feb. 2024. ↩︎
  2. “Exhibition: Chaucer Here and Now,” Bodleian Libraries: Visit, https://visit.bodleian.ox.
    ac.uk/chaucer, accessed 2 Feb. 2024. ↩︎

Works Cited

Beidler, Peter G. Geoffrey Chaucer: The Wife of Bath. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martins Press, 1996.

Strohm, Paul. Social Chaucer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989.

Sun, Yuxiu. “European and American Novels.” Short Story Magazine 4.1 (1913a): 1-8. [孙毓修，1913a， 《欧美小说丛谈》, 《小说月报》第 4 卷第 1 期，第 1—8 页。]

—. “European and American Novels (Continued).” Short Story Magazine 4.2 (1913b): 9-14. [孙毓修 1913b， 《欧美小说丛谈（续）》，《小说月报》第 4 卷第2 期，第 9—14 页。]

—. European and American Novels. Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1916. [孙毓修，1916， 《欧美小说丛谈》 ，上海：商务印书馆。]

Turner, Marion. Chaucer: A European Life. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2019.

—. Chaucerian Conflict: Languages of Antagonism in Late Fourteenth-Century London. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.

—. A Handbook of Middle English Studies. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

—. “Politics and London Life.” A Concise Companion to Chaucer. Ed. Corinne Saunders. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006. 13-33.

—. The Wife of Bath: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2023.

Utz, Richard, and Leslie J. Workman. “Speaking of Medievalism: An Interview with Leslie J. Workman.” Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honor of Leslie J. Workman. Ed. Richard Utz and Tom Shippey. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998. 433-449.

Reading Chaucer outside the Anglophone World: Receptions, Translations, and Traditions

by Candace Barrington

Plans for the next installment of “In Sondry Ages and Sondry Londes” are now in place. Organized by Sophia Yashih Liu (National Taiwan University), Yu-Ching (Louis) Wu (National Central University), and Jonathan Fruoco (University Paris Nanterre [CREA]), the conference will be held at National Taiwan University in Tapei and will honor Dr. Francis K. H. So, whose Mandarin Chinese translation of The Canterbury Tales was published in 2025.

I’ll be there, and I hope to see many of you there, too.

In Sondry Ages and Sondry Londes]
Reading Chaucer outside the Anglophone World:
Receptions, Translations, and Traditions
Date: March 12–13, 2027
Venue: National Taiwan University, Taiwan
**

The recent Mandarin Chinese translation of The Canterbury Tales (Linking Publishing, 2025) by Dr. Francis K. H. So offers a timely opportunity to reflect on the growing presence, vitality, and diversity of Chaucerian studies outside the Anglophone world. This significant contribution not only opens new avenues for engaging with Geoffrey Chaucer’s language and narrative art, but also foregrounds the crucial role of translation, pedagogy, and local scholarly traditions in shaping how Chaucer is read, interpreted, and taught across different linguistic and cultural contexts.

Aligned with the New Chaucer Society’s (NCS) ongoing initiative “In Sondry Ages and Sondry Londes” (curated by Dr. Jonathan Fruoco), this international conference seeks to advance a more globally grounded Chaucerian studies, one that situates the significance of Chaucer beyond the Anglophone world by foregrounding translation, adaptations, multilingual readerships, pedagogical practices, and cross-cultural intellectual exchange. By bringing together scholars working across diverse linguistic regions and by creating a venue for established scholars, early-career researchers, and graduate students, the conference aims to foster sustained conversations about Chaucer’s afterlives and to strengthen transnational scholarly networks shaped by translation, adaptation, and comparative inquiry.

The keynote speakers are Dr. Candace Barrington, Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University and President of the New Chaucer Society, whose work focuses on Chaucer and medieval English literature, especially global reception, translation, and adaptation, and Dr. Francis K. H. So, Professor Emeritus at National Sun Yat-sen University, whose scholarship centers on Chaucer, medieval and Renaissance English literature, East–West comparative studies, and the translation and global circulation of premodern texts.

We invite proposals that explore any aspect of Chaucer’s works, their translations and adaptations, as well as their critical or creative receptions outside the Anglophone world, or in comparative and transregional contexts. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

  • Translation, Adaptation, and Literary Mediation
    • New approaches to, or challenges in, translating Chaucer into non-Anglophone languages
    • Histories of major translations and translators, and the role of translation in shaping local understandings of Chaucer
    • Considerations of the role publishers (both university and commercial presses) supporting and promoting editions of Chaucer outside the Anglophone sphere
    • Theoretical reflections on translation, vernacularity, and Middle English in multilingual or cross-cultural contexts
    • Chaucer-inspired works in contemporary literature, media, or visual culture
  • Reception, Pedagogy, and Intellectual Histories
    • Histories of Chaucerian scholarship in non-Anglophone academic traditions
    • Pedagogical practices and challenges in teaching Chaucer in multilingual or non-Anglophone classrooms
    • Chaucer in textbook cultures, anthologies, curricula, and the formation of literary canons, particularly the “World Literature” category Chaucer in Global and Comparative Perspectives
  • Cross-cultural approaches to medieval narrative, performance, humor, or religiosity
    • Comparative medievalisms across linguistic, national, or cultural traditions
    • Reading Chaucer alongside non-Western or premodern texts (for example, The Tale of Genji, The Cloud Dream of the Nine, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms), with attention to narrative framing, irony, or social satire
    • Intersections between Chaucer and local philosophical or aesthetic traditions
  • Texts, Traditions, and Critical Methods
    • Critical innovations on Chaucer’s oeuvre (The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, the dream visions, Chaucer’s translations of Latin and French texts, and shorter poems), through lenses such as gender, race, affect, ecology, embodiment, or disability
    • Manuscript studies, material culture, digital humanities, or archival research, particularly Middle English manuscripts housed in Asia and the global South.
    • Chaucer, colonialism, and postcolonial reception histories in non-Anglophone contexts

The conference will be held in person on March 12–13, 2027, at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Please submit a proposal (250 words in English) along with a brief bio of 100 words to readingchaucer@gmail.com by June 30, 2026. In addition to individual paper proposals, the conference welcomes panel proposals consisting of three to four papers organized around a shared theme. Panel submissions should include a panel abstract (300 words) outlining the panel’s coherence and relevance to the conference theme, along with individual paper abstracts (250 words each) and a brief 100-word bio for each participant.

We particularly welcome submissions from graduate students and early-career scholars, and we hope this gathering will reinforce and expand long-term networks of Chaucerian research beyond the Anglophone world. There is no registration fee for the conference. For updated information, please visit the conference website: https://readingchaucer.com/.

This event is co-sponsored by the New Chaucer Society (NCS), the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies (TACMRS), University Paris Nanterre (CREA), and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), Taiwan.

Conference Organizers:
Sophia Yashih Liu, National Taiwan University
Yu-Ching (Louis) Wu, National Central University
Jonathan Fruoco, University Paris Nanterre (CREA)

Džefri Čoser’s Serbian translator: Professor Boris Hlebec

by Candace Barrington

Much of the history of the Global Chaucers project could be written be detailing a series of chance encounters and missed opportunities. One of the more recent examples of a chance encounter was my meeting Danko Kamčevski (Metropolitan University of Belgrade) this past November at the Chaucer in the Age of Medievalism conference at the University of Lorraine (Nancy, France). He not only knew about Boris Hlebec’s 1983 Serbian translation–Džefri Čoser’s Kanterberijske priče–but offered to send me a copy. Indeed, just a few days after the conference, he wrote that he’d found a copy and gone to the post office to mail it, only to be informed that, in response to the ongoing tariffs, the Serbian Post Office does not allow packages to be sent to the United States.

Meanwhile, Danko has shared a careful explication of Hlebec’s translation of a passage from The Knight’s Tale as well as forwarded Sergej Macura’s 2025 article examining the metrical and lexical equivalences between Chaucer’s Middle English General Prologue and Hlebec’s translation. He has also notified me that Professor Hlebec has recently died. Never getting to correspond with Chaucer’s Serbian translator is my missed opportunity.

Eventually, I’ll find a way to get Kanterberijske priče, and both Danko Kamčevski’s explication and Sergej Macura’s article will contribute significantly to my current writing project. I do wish, though, that I could have thanked Professor Hlebec for his contributions.

Have you developed a great idea after the initial proposal deadline for the 2026 NCS Congress? If so, here’s your second chance!

by Candace Barrington

The 2026 NCS Congress Program Committee warmly invites additional proposals for the Congress’s Research Expo. The Research Expo will host research with strong visual or digital elements presented in a display or poster format. Presenters will discuss their display and the underpinning research during a single launch session.

This session is open to a range of formats and topics that may offer updates on work-in-progress, preliminary conclusions, experimental modes of presenting research data, and shorter summaries of material. Topics particularly suited to posters might include, but are certainly not limited to: 

  • Research on manuscripts or other aspects of material culture
  • Image-heavy work that deploys visual analysis
  • Updates on large-scale funded projects or other grant funded work-in-progress
  • Data-driven work that is communicated in graphical forms
  • Experimental digital methods
  • Incorporate a hands-on or other interactive element

Posters will be displayed in a hall where receptions will be held and a time will be reserved for researchers to talk about their work. A prize will be offered to one poster. 

Note: The printing of posters can be done in Freiburg (and at no cost) before the conference (more information will be provided to those whose posters are accepted).

To submit a proposal: Proposals should be titled and no longer than 200 words. Please include your name, affiliation, and your email address along with your abstract. Please email your proposal directly to the Research Expo organisers Mary Flannery, R. D. Perry, and J. R. Mattison at ncs2026freiburg@gmail.com no later than 31 December 2025.

Death of a beloved translator, John Boje

by Candace Barrington

One of the great joys of the Global Chaucers project has been the opportunity to correspond (and sometimes meet) many translators and scholars from around the world. Each one has taught me much about translation, Chaucer, and the joys of literature. Perhaps none taught me more than John Boje of Pretoria, South Africa.

He and I began corresponding in November 2013. I had learned (from someone on some platform) about his ‘n Keur uit die Pelgrimsverhale van Geoffrey Chaucer [A Selection of the Pilgrims’ Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer]. I emailed him, asking if he’d be willing to answer some questions. I tapped “send,” and before I had a chance to make a cup of tea, I heard back from him with an enthusiastic “Yes!” And so began our collaboration and our friendship.

Earlier that year, he had completed his translation of all the tales (including, he was proud to report, The Parson’s Tale and The Tale of Melibee), so all the tribulations and victories of translation were fresh in his mind. I would send one-line questions, and he’d respond with pages filled with exuberant answers and multiple examples. He described complications and shared insights that I didn’t have the experience to imagine. He gleefully (and mischievously) explained how he exploited the common Dutch ancestry of both Middle English and Afrikaans words. He showed me how Afrikaans, a language associated with an oppressive regime, could be slyly used (in ways that Chaucerians can appreciate) to subvert the dominant discourse.

Because he eventually wrote “‘Save oure tonges difference’: Reflections on Translating Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales into Afrikaans,” his doctoral dissertation whose erudition is belied by the “reflections,” I have at hand a compendium of his thoughts about particular techniques or specific dilemmas.

I am fortunate that I learned of his decline in time to send him a note expressing my gratitude. I wanted him to know that our initial email conversations became the foundation of my scholarly practice. His clear and enthusiastic answers to my ambitious questions convinced me that I would be able to make a long-term project out of my germ of an idea.

I must add one more note: John’s generosity of spirit extended far beyond the gracious help he offered me. As his friends and family testify, he provides an unbeatable example of how to work towards a world where “justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme” (Seamus Heaney, “The Cure of Troy”).

Chaucer in the Age of Medievalism: In sondry ages and sundry londes

by Candace Barrington

Colloquium organizers–Justine Breton and Jonathan Fruoco–have announced the full program for the upcoming Chaucer in the Age of Medievalism to be held at the University of Lorraine in Nancy, France, 13-14 November 2025.

Any attending the conference will not need to register or pay a fee. There will not be an online option.

Next month’s event is part of Jonathan Fruoco’s “In Sondry Ages and Sundry Londes” conference cycle sponsored by the New Chaucer Society. These events explore Chaucer’s presence and reception in non-Anglophone countries. Prior conferences took place in Grenoble, France (2018) and Hiroshima, Japan (2023). Jonathan is looking for someone to help organize the next conference outside of the Anglosphere in 2027. Contact him at jonathan dot fruoco at gmail dot com if you’re interested.

Korean Translations of The Canterbury Tales: A Comparative Introduction (with Samples!)

by Yea Jung Park (Saint Louis University)

Compiler’s note: The annotated list shared here is the result of serious sleuthing through archives, libraries, and used bookstores, but it is by no means fully comprehensive. My interest in Korean translations of the Tales has two originary moments: one is when I located a rarely-discussed abridged translation of the Tales in the collected works of Choe Nam-seon, among his early 20th-century serializations of “world literature” in translation, and another is when I chanced on a previously undocumented translation of the Tales (“Fake Kim B” below) while shopping for a recommended translation (“True Kim” below). Both ‘discoveries,’ while interesting in themselves, also show that there may be more such translations not discussed here, including partial translations or individual tales. Kang and Choi’s study mentions a lost translation, Kwak Jang-hyun’s 1962 publication, a copy of which they (and I too) failed to locate. A children’s version of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale has been previously identified in the Global Chaucers database. I also note that post-separation North Korea may hold translation archives to which I did not have access. This list may well be updated in the future, and I would be more than happy to receive queries or tips at yeajung.park at slu.edu.

The “CHOE N.” text (CHOE Nam-seon 최남선, 1915-17). Prose; partial and abridged [7 tales]; indirectly translated. Abridged versions of the following: General Prologue; The Knight’s Tale; The Clerk’s Tale; The Franklin’s Tale; The Pardoner’s Tale; The Wife of Bath’s Tale; The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (misnamed as the Nun’s Tale); The Prioress’s Tale. Published as one of the major Western classics under the heading of “세계문학개관” [Introduction to World Literature] in the magazine “청춘” [Youth], this translation was made by Choe Nam-seon, a cultural activist, literary translator and critic who is now also considered the first Korean “modern” poet. Choe’s source, an abridged Japanese translation, was identified only recently in 2018 (see Kim reference). Although Choe worked indirectly, many of his rhetorical flourishes are original, using onomatopoeia and action words that fill out the Japanese base text in ways that create effects surprisingly similar to Chaucer’s vernacular. The opening, an abbreviated version the General Prologue, is reworked into a musical rhythm and vocabulary that echoes the rhetoric of traditional Korean genres such as pansori (musical story-telling genre) or early vernacular soseol (novel). The links to traditional Korean genres, immediately recognizable to today’s Korean readers as hailing from Korea’s premodern vernacularity, create an interesting temporal effect, marking the text as something with a deep linguistic and literary past without the artificial interventions of a consciously “antiquating” translation. Kang and Choi point out that communicating the “feel” of Middle English to modern Korean readers poses a particularly difficult challenge for translators (p. 233); translated artifacts from Korea’s own literary past provide one good way of meeting this challenge. Presenting students with the Choe text as Chaucer’s “first encounter” with the Korean reading public will prompt simultaneous critical attention to the historical particularities of Chaucer’s language and to Chaucer’s afterlife and global transmission history.

The “TRUE KIM” text (KIM Jin-man 김진만, 1963). Prose, versified in later reprints by adding line-breaks; full and unabridged; directly translated with reference to other translations. Kim Jin-man, one of Korea’s pioneering scholars of medieval English literature, published a full translation of the Canterbury Tales in 1963, the first to include all of the Tales and also the first known translation to work directly from Middle English. As mentioned above, Kim’s translation is generally considered the “best” Korean rendition of the Tales, and has been reprinted several times. Kim names F. N. Robinson’s Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1957, 2nd ed.) as his source text, showing that he chose an up-to-date and authoritative version at the time of translation. At the same time, Kim cites other translations, including modern English renditions by R. M. Lumiansky and Nevill Coghill, a French translation (Les contes de Canterbury by L. Cazamian and others), and Junzaburō Nishiwaki’s Japanese translation (『カンタベリー物語』). The plethora of sources that fed into this translation highlight the fact that even the most academically acclaimed translations rarely constitute an isolated exchange between the original text and the genius of the translator; it is a cultural amalgam that becomes rich through, not despite, multiple vectors of influence. Kim’s stated multivalent translation practice and its eminent success supports both the usefulness of considering multiple translations of the same text together, and the inclusion of indirect translations such as Choe’s in the scope of such considerations.

The “FAKE KIM A (GIANT BOOKS)” text (1982). Prose; partial [General Prologue and 9 tales]; possibly indirectly translated. Discovered by Kang and Choi to be a separate translation from Kim’s authentic 1963 text, this translation circulating under Kim’s name was published in 1982 by Moongongsa as part of the “Giant Books” series of world’s classics and Korean must-reads. Although Kang and Choi condemn this translation as one filled with errors and mistranslations (pp. 238-42), some readers have noted that the Korean prose of this text is much more readable than more literal academic translations. The focus on readable prose, perhaps the hallmark of heavy editorial processing, marks this text as the forebear of later prose translations such as Song’s, visibly geared toward a general reading public rather than academics or students of English literature.

The “FAKE KIM B (DONGSEO)” text (1987). Prose; full and unabridged; possibly indirectly translated. The publishing house Dongseomunhwasa (Dongsuh Publishers) published an authentic reprint of Kim’s translation in 1975, but the 1987 reprint (acquired by accident while searching for the “True Kim” text) is yet another separate translation. The book faithfully reproduces Kim’s 1963 introduction, but surreptitiously adds Michio Masui’s Japanese translation from the 1970s to the list of translations credited. This addition hints that the “ghost translator” behind this text either incorporated Masui’s translation or used it wholesale as the mediating source. The text also shows influence from modern English translations not initially mentioned by Kim, such as a telling reference to the “scent of fruit” in the first line of the General Prologue (that can only be a residue of the rhyming efforts of J. U. Nicolson’s 1934 translation, which runs: “When April with his showers sweet with fruit / The drought of March has pierced unto the root”; my emphasis). This “questionable” version was a surprising crowd favorite among my sample readers, who remarked on its resonance with the overall tone of 1980s Korean literature and chose it as one of the most pleasurable reads along with the “True Kim” text. However questionable the provenance or presentation, a new full translation of the Tales is a muscular feat, and it is worth noting that the Korean market produced yet another one at this time.

The “SONG” text (SONG Byeong-seon 송병선, 2000). Prose; full and unabridged; directly translated with reference to other translations. Translated by Song Byeongseon, a scholar of Spanish literature, this text does not immediately earn the approval of English literature scholars such as Kang and Choi, but the fact that this translation managed to edge out both the iffy Kim reprints and the roughly contemporary Lee & Lee translation in the market is interesting. This translation is currently by far the easiest text to acquire, sold in multiple editions in bookstores, and thus sports the largest number of online reader reviews to date, though likely soon to be overtaken by the newer Choi Yejung translation discussed below. (For the numbers of reviews, I referred to the websites of two major Korean booksellers: Kyobobook and Aladin.) The translation was re-released in an abridged version geared toward young adults in 2007, with comic subheadings added to each tale (e.g., “If your story’s good, your meal is free” for the General Prologue). The translation claims to be based on both Middle English and Spanish; the translator names John H. Fisher’s Middle English edition, The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer (1977), noting its basis on the Ellesmere manuscripts as the reason for his choice, along with a Spanish translation (Los cuentos de Canterbury, 1991). Song’s nod to the manuscript tradition of the Tales displays the kind of interest in faithfulness and rigor increasingly expected of Korean translations, but his use of a Spanish help-text marks this translation as a participant in the tradition of multiply-translated texts that still impacts the Korean literary market.

The “LEE & LEE” text (LEE Dongill & LEE Dongchoon 이동일 & 이동춘, 2007). Mix of prose and verse; full and unabridged; directly translated. This collaborative translation by English professors Lee Dongill and Lee Dongchoon was the first in the several decades following Kim’s original translation to claim special expertise in Middle English literature. Parts of the translation were published earlier in 2001 and 2004 from Hanwool Publishing. The translation takes as its source the 1987 edition of The Riverside Chaucer, edited by Larry D. Benson. The translation is deemed “highly accurate” by Kang and Choi (p. 255), but the focus on accuracy of sense rather than ease of reading or communication of ambience contrasts with the efforts made by Kim to recreate the tone of particular speakers. The translation generally follows the original’s choice of verse or prose, as witnessed in the earlier partial publications of this translation, but the consolidated full edition cited here sometimes renders verse tales into prose (perhaps due to length issues or editorial choice). The general consensus among readers is that this translation is not a standalone reading text, but a near-literal translation that Korean students of Chaucer can lean on when struggling with the original Middle English.

The “CHOI Y.” text (CHOI Yejung 최예정, 2022). Mix of prose and verse; full and unabridged in two volumes; directly translated. Translated by Choi Yejung, a Korean scholar of Middle English literature who has previously conducted comparative critiques of existing Chaucer translations herself, this very recent publication takes The Riverside Chaucer (3rd ed.) as its source. In choosing verse or prose form, the translation faithfully follows the original. It also has the interesting distinction of being the first translation to deploy the polite register (hasipsio-che) of Korean throughout the main narration, resulting in a more conversational yet elevated tone overall than the ‘plain’ formal style (haera-che) of earlier translations. (There is some variation in register and speech level to reflect particular speakers’ character and mood, an element that can be witnessed in other translations as well; comparison of register choices among translations will be an interesting comparative project specific to the Korean-language scene.) Erudite but also very readable, even a smidgen too casual at times, this translation seems likely to become the new standard edition for Korean readers, especially as part of the acclaimed world’s classics series from the publishing house Eulyoo.

The revised “LEE & LEE” text (LEE Dongill & LEE Dongchoon 이동일 & 이동춘, 2007). Mix of prose and verse; full and unabridged; directly translated. A revised version of the 2007 text, created for Minumsa’s long-running world literature series. In the translators’ preface for this edition, Lee and Lee state that revisions were made in the interest of clarity for each line and for the general context, and that they paid extra attention to the meaning of the original Middle English. They expressed regret that Chaucer’s verse rhythm is difficult to reproduce in Korean. Based on comparisons of select passages, revisions appear to be mainly cosmetic (word choice, punctuation). A fuller comparison will give an interesting vision into how the same set of translators can make different textual choices over time.

CHOOSE YOUR FAVORITE: I share some sample passages from each Korean translation drawn from the same sections of the General Prologue, with my English back-translations for non-Korean readers’ reference. (These back-translations will of course reflect my own understanding of the flavor of each translation; if you are a Korean-language reader and have a different back-translation to offer, please reach out!)

Comparing each translator’s treatment of Chaucer’s famous opening lines, particularly their seasonal language and vivid imagery, is a great way to begin appreciating the different stylistic choices and atmosphere-setting work of each translation. For detailed suggestions on using such passage comparisons in the classroom, see my article “Multiply-Translated Chaucer in the Korean Classroom,” which focuses on descriptions of the Wife of Bath in particular.

[Middle English]

What that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour.
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes… (General Prologue 1-7)

Bifil that in that seson on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde. (General Prologue 19-27)

[Choe N.] 때는 춘삼월春三月 망간望間 땅은 런던倫敦의 남부南部 싸우드웍(Southwork) [sic] 숫막 쇄금정鎖金亭이라. 캔터베리 치성致誠을 가랴고 적적寂寂한 복로 방房에 전전반측輾轉反側 홀로 누어 잠이 드냐말냐 하는 차에 꾸역꾸역 들어오는 이십구명二十九名의 행인行人이 다가튼 치성致誠길이나 제각금 다른 직분職分…

The time is spring, near the middle of the third month; the place is the tavern Swaegeumjeong [lit. ‘Padlock Inn,’ perhaps short for ‘Gold-decorated (Tabard) Inn’] in Southwark, a southern part of London. Meaning to go for devout prayers to Canterbury, as I lay alone and fidgeting in a quiet side room, on the brink of waking and sleep, come a-swarming in twenty-nine wayfarers, all on the same prayer-way but each from a different estate…

[True Kim] 사월달 달콤한 소나기가 삼월 가물을 속속들이 꿰뚫고 꽃을 피게 하는 습기로 온 세상 나뭇가지의 힘줄을 적시어 주면, 서녘바람 또한 잔나무 밭 애송이 가지의 끝과 끝 속에 감미로운 입김을 불어 넣어 준다.

When the month of April’s sweet showers pierce deep through the March drought, and when with the moisture that causes the flowers to bloom they drench the sinews of all the tree-branches of the world, the westerly breeze also offers to blow its mellow breath into the fine end-points of the baby branches in gardens of small trees.

이 계절 어느날, 나는 경건한 마음으로 캔터베리로의 순례를 작정하고, 싸작크의 타바드 여인숙에 투숙했다. 밤이 되자 그 여인숙에는 스물 하고 아홉 사람의 한 떼가 들었다. 우연히 동행이 된 형형색색의 이 사람들은 모두 순례자들이었고, 찾아가는 곳은 캔터베리였다.

One day in this season, I with a devout heart decided upon a pilgrimage to Canterbury, and found lodgings at Southwark’s Tabard Inn. When it became night, into that inn there entered a crowd of twenty people and nine. Having become companions by chance, these people of all shapes and colors were all pilgrims, and the place they were looking to head was Canterbury.

[Fake Kim A]

달콤한 4월의 비가 한차례 내리자 메말랐던 4월의 대지가 촉촉히 물기를 머금어 나무들은 생기를 되찾고 꽃봉오리도 벌어지기 시작했다. 숲 속의 나뭇가지와 무성하게 자란 관목은 서풍의 향긋한 입김으로 부드러운 작은 가지를 뻗는다.

After a round of sweet April showers, the parched earth of April [sic] held water moistly, so that trees regained their liveliness and flower buds also began to open. The branches in the woods and the lushly grown bushes stretch out soft small sprigs due to the fragrant breath of the west wind.

그와 같은 시절의 어느 날, 신앙심이 샘솟듯 솟아올라, 나는 캔터베리 사원을 향해 혼자서 길을 떠났다. 도중에 런던 변두리 사자크의 ‹타바드 여관›에 묵게 되었다. 우연히도 그 여관에 29 명의 일행이 묵고 있었다. 듣건대 그들은 신분도 직업도 달랐으나, 여행 중에 서로 만나 함께 다니게 되었다는 것이었다. 그들은 말을 타고서 캔터베리에 참례한다고 했다. 물론 나도 그들 가운데 끼어들었다.

One day in that same period, piety welling up like a fountain, I embarked alone on the road toward the Canterbury shrine. On the way, I happened to stay at the ‹Tabard Inn› in Southwark, in the peripheries of London. By chance, there was a group of 29 people staying there at that inn. As I heard tell, they were all different in status and profession, but met during their travels and joined to journey together. They were riding on horses to pay their respects at Canterbury. I of course edged my way in among them.

[Fake Kim B]

과일 향기 달콤한 4월의 봄비
3월의 마른 나무뿌리에 스며들어
수액이 흐르는 온세상 줄기들을 촉촉이
적셔 꽃봉오리 터뜨릴 즈음,
서녘바람 감미로운 입김을
숲과 나무 여린 새싹에 불어넣는다.

Sweet with the scent of fruit, the April spring rain
Seeps into the dry tree-roots of March.
And drenches moistly all the sap-filled branches of the world
And makes the flower-buds burst open—just about then,
The westerly breeze blows its mellow breath
Into the tender buds of woods and trees.

이 계절의 어느 날,
나는 경건한 마음으로 캔터베리를 순례하고자
서더크에 있는 타바드 여관에 묵고 있었다.
어둠이 깔릴 무렵 스물아홉 명의 여러 계층이 우연히 만나 여관으로 몰려 들어왔다.
그들 모두 참배를 하기 위해 캔터베리로 가고 있었다.

One day in this season,
In order to make pilgrimage to Canterbury with a devout heart, I
Was lodging at the Tabard Inn, which was in Southwark.
Just as dusk settled, twenty-nine people of various estates met by chance and crowded into the inn.
They were all heading to Canterbury to pay their respects.

[Song] 은은하게 내리는 4월의 비가 3월의 가물었던 땅 속으로 깊이 파들어갔다. 그 비는 꽃을 피우기에 모자람이 없을 정도로 대지의 모든 나뭇가지를 촉촉이 적셨고, 서풍은 감미로운 입김으로 숲과 들판의 연약한 싹에 생기를 불어넣었다.

The delicately falling rain of April delved deep into the parched earth of March. This rain moistly drenched all of the earth’s branches, enough to make flowers bloom, and the west wind with its mellow breath blew a lively spirit into the frail buds of the woods and meadows.

이런 시기의 어느 날이었다. 나는 경건한 마음으로 캔터베리로 순례하기로 마음먹고 런던교 남쪽의 서더크 구역에 있는 타바드 여관에 묵고 있었다. 그런데 어둠이 깔릴 무렵 스물아홉 명의 무리가 이곳에 도착했다. 그들은 각양 각색의 계층에 속해 있었는데, 우연히 만나서 무리를 이루어 캔터베리로 향하고 있었다.

It was one day in this period. I had decided to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury with a devout heart and was lodging in the Tabard Inn in the Southwark area, south of London Bridge. Then just as dusk settled, a crowd of twenty-nine arrived at this place. They belonged to a diverse array of estates, and were heading to Canterbury, having met by chance and formed a group.

[Lee & Lee; differences in the 2023 revision in brackets]

사월의 달콤한 소나기가 삼월의 가뭄을
뿌리까지 깊이 꿰뚫을 때,
그리고 꽃을 피게 하는 촉진적인 힘을 지닌
그 촉촉함[축축함]에 모든 줄기가 적셔질 때
그리고 서풍 역시 달콤한 입김으로
모든 숲과 들판에서 부드러운 새순에
생명력을 불어넣고 있을 때…

When the sweet shower of April pierces
The drought of March deeply unto the root,
And when all branches are drenched in that moistness [wetness].
That bears the promoting power that makes flowers bloom.
And when the west wind also with sweet breath
Into the soft new buds in all woods and fields
Blows living energy…

이 계절 어느 날,
캔터베리로 성지순례를 떠나기 위해
마음속 믿음 가득한 채 내가 머물고 있던
서더크에 있는 타바드 여관에,
저녁 무렵 다양한 계층의 스물아홉 사람이
우연히 일행이 되어.
단체로 [한 무리로] 그 여관을 찾았다.
그들 모두는 순례자로서
캔터베리를 향하여 가려는 의도를 지니고 있었다.

One day in this season,
Into the Tabard Inn in Southwark
Where I was lodging while faith was full in my heart
In order to depart on pilgrimage to Canterbury,
Around evening twenty-nine people of various estates
Having become companions by chance.
Visited the inn as a group [as one crowd].
They all were pilgrims
And bore the intent of going towards Canterbury.

[Choi Y.]

4월의 달콤한 소나기가
3월의 메마른 뿌리까지 뚫고 들어가
줄기마다 물기로 촉촉하게 적셔
그 힘으로 꽃이 피어나던 때였습니다.
서풍이 향긋한 숨결로
온 숲과 들판에 생명을 불어넣어
보드라운 새싹이 돋아나던 때였지요.

When the sweet showers of April
Pierced through to the dry roots of March
And drenched with moisture each stem
So that flowers would bloom through that power—this was the time.
It was the time when the west wind with sweet breath
Blew life into all the woods and meadows
So that soft new buds began to grow.

이런 계절의 어느 날,
저는 매우 경건한 마음으로
캔터베리로 순례길을 떠날 채비를 하고
서더크 지방의 타바드라는 숙소에 묵게 되었습니다.
밤이 되자 그곳으로
스물아홉 명은 족히 되는
각양각색의 사람들이 들어왔습니다.
그들은 모두 순례자로서
캔터베리로 가는 길에
우연히 만나 동행하게 된 사람들이었습니다.

One such day in this season,
I, with a very devout heart,
Prepared to go on pilgrimage to Canterbury
And happened to lodge at an inn called Tabard in the Southwark area.
When night fell, into the place came
Folks fully twenty-nine in number
Of a diverse array of types.
They all were pilgrims, And on the way to Canterbury
Had met by chance, and begun to travel together.

Texts and translations cited (in chronological order)

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. In The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed., edited by Larry D. Benson. Oxford University Press, 2008. 23–328.

최남선 (CHOE Nam-Seon), trans. “캔터베리記” [Tales of Canterbury]. In 『육당 최남선 전집』 [Complete Works of Yukdang Choe Nam-seon], vol. 13. 역락 Youkrack, 2003. Originally serialized in the magazine 『청춘』[Youth] during years 1915–1917.

김진만 (KIM Jin-man) [True Kim], trans. 『캔터베리 이야기』 [Canterbury Tales]. 정음사 Jeongeumsa, 1963.

김진만 (KIM Jin-man) [Fake Kim A], trans. 『캔터베리 이야기』 [Canterbury Tales]. 문공사 Moongongsa, 1982.

김진만 (KIM Jin-man) [Fake Kim B], trans. 『캔터베리 이야기』 [Canterbury Tales]. 동서문화사 Dongsuh Publishers, 1987.

송병선 (SONG Byeongseon), trans. 『캔터베리 이야기』 [Canterbury Tales]. 책이있는마을 Book Village, 2000.

이동일 & 이동춘 (LEE Dongill & LEE Dongchoon), trans. 『캔터베리 이야기』 [Canterbury Tales]. 한국외국어대학교출판부 Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Press, 2007.

최예정 (CHOI Yejung), trans. 『캔터베리 이야기』 [Canterbury Tales], 2 vols. 을유문화사 Eulyoo Publishing, 2022.

이동일 & 이동춘 (LEE Dongill & LEE Dongchoon), trans. 『캔터베리 이야기』 [Canterbury Tales], 2 vols. 민음사 Minumsa Publishing, 2023.

References and related works

강지수 & 최예정 (KANG Ji-Soo & CHOI Yejung). “‘각양각색의 사람들이 각양각색으로 이야기했노라’—『캔터베리 이야기』 번역 검토” [“Diverse folk diversely they seyde”: Korean Translations of The Canterbury Tales]. 중세르네상스영문학 [Medieval and Early Modern English Studies] 12.1 (June 2004): 225-56. Korean text, English abstract available.

김준현 (KIM Jun-hyun). “『청춘』의 ‘세계문학개관’ 저본에 대한 검토 (1)—최남선과 마쓰우라 마사야스(松浦政泰)” [Review on the Original Text of “World Literature Overview” in Cheongchoon (Youth)—Choi Nam-seon and Matsura Masayasu]. 사이間SAI 24 (2018): 9–41. The Tales are discussed on pp. 30-34. Korean text, English abstract available.

영미문학연구회 번역평가사업단 (Assessment of Translations of Major British and American Writers Project). “캔터베리 이야기” [The Canterbury Tales]. 『영미명작, 좋은 번역을 찾아서』 [British and American Literature: In Search of Good Translations]. Changbi, 2005. 245-265. Korean.

이동일 (LEE Dongill). “『캔터베리이야기』 한국어 번역의 문제점 고찰” [A Consideration of Problems in Korean Translations of The Canterbury Tales]. 영미연구 [Journal of British & American Studies] 36 (2016): 27–52. Korean text, English abstract available.

PARK, Yea Jung. “Multiply-Translated Chaucer in the Korean Classroom.” Literature Compass 21.1-3 (2024). http://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12735. English.

2026 New Chaucer Society Congress at University of Freiburg: Call for paper proposals now available

by Candace Barrington

The program committee co-chairs for the 2026 NCS Congress, Mary Flannery and Ryan Perry, have released the call for paper proposals. You will find both the full cfp and the guidelines for submission at the New Chaucer Society website.

Please keep in mind the two-step submission process. Both steps are due 27 April 2025.

Global Chaucerians will find a wealth of sessions to consider. Many explicitly invite a global perspective, including (but certainly not limited to)

  • 5. Medieval Ecologies out of Place
  • 6. Queer Medieval Ecologies
  • 7. Perspectives on Premodern Ecologies
  • 8. Middle English Multilingualism Beyond French and Latin
  • 9. Multilingual Approaches to Pilgrimage and Crusade Narratives
  • 10. Languages Beyond Borders: Multilingual Contact Zones
  • 11. Multilingualism on the Road
  • 12. Perspectives on Global Medieval Travel Writing
  • 13. Multilingual Middle English
  • 14. Medievalists Moving Together: Social Movements and New Solidarities
  • 15. Involuntary Mobility: Displacement, Migration, Language, Refuge
  • 26. Global Medievalisms
  • 27. Medievalism and Contemporary Retellings
  • 30. Reconstructing the Middle Ages: Architectural Medievalism
  • 31. Understanding the Coloniser/Re-Imagining the Medieval
  • 34. Medieval Intersectionality
  • 43. Global Perspectives on the Study of Chaucer
  • 71. Translanguaging
  • 73. New Medieval Literatures Presents: Chaucer and the Unexpected…
  • 75. Comparative Work in Medieval English and German

Others seem ripe for a global perspective:

  • 17. The Social Lives of Medieval Devotional Texts
  • 22. Living Libraries, Living Laboratories: Medieval Books and Archives and/as Classrooms
  • 25. Analog Medievalisms
  • 28. Ageless Medievalisms
  • 29. Institutions
  • 32. Transcending Precarity Through Solidarity
  • 38. Generosity: Now
  • 44. Translation Urbis / Cities in Translation
  • 53. Lyric Threats
  • 78. Research Expo
  • 79. Open Paper Thread

And, of course, all the other sessions welcome your proposals!

So, please enjoy reading the vibrant call for proposals.

If you have specific questions about the submission process or general questions about the congress, please contact me. I’m happy to point you to someone with the answers.

We’re excited to learn how the sessions and their descriptions stimulate new ideas. Most of all, we’re thrilled that we’ll be able to see many of you in Freiburg.

Nazmi Ağıl’s Canterbury Hikâyelieri: 30 years and 9 editions later

by Candace Barrington

The first translator I interviewed for Global Chaucers was Nazmi Ağıl, Chaucer’s Turkish translator, in April 2013. Jonathan Hsy and I had launched our project only a few months earlier, and we were still trying to determine who was out there, what they were doing, and how we would approach them.

Early in developing Global Chaucers, I had downloaded the New Chaucer Society membership list and contacted anyone with an affiliation outside the Anglophone academic sphere. I asked for information about translations, adaptations, as well as courses that included Chaucer in their reading lists. Among the many who responded, we heard from a colleague in Turkey who pointed us to Nazmi and his translation, Canterbury Hikâkyelieri.

As it happened, I was scheduled to be in Istanbul for the opening of a close friend’s art exhibit. To make the most of the opportunity, I contacted Nazmi. We met for coffee at Taksim Meydanı, the large public square where, a month later, the Gezi protests were met with violence. But that day, the square was bustling and normal. And inside the coffee shop, Nazmi taught me how to ask translators questions. Later that week, we traveled up the Bosphorus, almost to the Black Sea, in order to visit Nazmi’s classes at Koç University and to meet his students and colleagues. In many ways, meeting Nazmi marks a shift in my understanding of the Global Chaucers project.

In subsequent years, we’ve met again in Istanbul and in Reykjavík (for NCS 2014 and the first iteration of the Polyglot Miller’s Tale!). We’ve even published together in a 2018 special issue of Literature Compass: Chaucer’s Global Compaignye.

Our most recent joint appearance has been in Medievalism and Reception, an essay collection edited by Ellie Crookes and Ika Willis. Published earlier this fall by D.S.Brewer in their Medievalism series, the volume closes with Nazmi’s absolutely gorgeous “Hosting Chaucer’s Pilgrims in Turkish.” If you want to read about translating Chaucer from one of his best translators, get your hands on Nazmi’s essay.

And if you’re curious about role of translators in ensuring Chaucer’s readership, note this: Canterbury Hikâyelieri is in its 9th edition!

2026 New Chaucer Society Congress: Call for Sessions

Germany’s Black Forest is Calling

by Candace Barrington

The Program Committee for the 24th Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society–to be held in Freiburg, Germany, 27-30 July 2026–has released its Call for Sessions.

The Call includes guidelines for submitting panel proposals to eight thread options:

  • Comparative Environmentalisms
  • Multilingualism and Mobility
  • The Social Lives of Medieval Books
  • Ubiquitous Medievalism
  • Precarity
  • Tales in Translation
  • Thinking with/through Ethics/Aesthetics
  • Open Topics

You will find complete descriptions of the threads as well as the submission process here.

The deadline for submitting a session proposal is 17 January 2025.

The ensuing Call for Papers will appear soon thereafter.

Kuddos to the program committee members Alastair Bennett, Gina M. Hurley, Koichi Kano, Julia R. Mattison, and Eva von Contzen (ex officio), led by committee co-chairs Mary Flannery and Ryan D. Perry.