Tag: Reception

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
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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)

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

13-14 November 2025. University of Lorraine, Nancy

Following the Chaucer: Here and Now exhibition (2023-2024) at the Bodleian Library, this conference–sponsored by the Modernités Médiévales association and the New Chaucer Society–aims to continue the reflection on the medievalist dimension of Geoffrey Chaucer’s work and its persistent influence in contemporary culture.

Far from being confined to his era, Geoffrey Chaucer’s work continues to resonate through the ages, inspiring a multitude of post-medieval representations. The poet himself remains a regularly invoked figure, sometimes even without direct connection to his texts, suggesting an autonomous legacy of Chaucer both as a man and an artist. Whether through the prism of cinema, music, theater, television, poetry, or other artistic forms, the poet remains an endless source of inspiration and reinterpretation. This conference invites us to question how adaptations and reinterpretations of Chaucer and/or his work by artists from diverse cultural backgrounds enrich our understanding of his legacy. His various incarnations over the centuries raise fascinating issues regarding intercultural dialogue, the politics of memory, and the evolution of popular culture.

Proposals may particularly focus on one of the following axes, without necessarily being limited to them.

Axis 1: Medievalist Echoes of Chaucer’s Work
A first axis of study will examine how Chaucer’s work is reinterpreted and adapted in contemporary culture through various artistic forms. What specific Chaucerian motifs and themes resonate in the modern context, and what are the reasons for this resonance? This exploration will study how artists adapt his work while preserving medieval elements and question the stakes of selecting and modernizing these elements. The influence of William Morris on the reception and representation of Chaucer will receive special attention. By publishing The Canterbury Tales in his Kelmscott Chaucer and bringing to life a romantic vision of the Middle Ages through works such as The Earthly Paradise, Morris profoundly
shaped the perception of Chaucer from the 19th century onwards. It will be relevant to examine how Morris, like others, reshaped Chaucer’s image to serve his own aesthetic and ideological ideals, in order to deepen the repercussions of this reinterpretation on the contemporary reception of Chaucer’s work.
We also invite study of the theatrical and poetic performances of Chaucer’s work and their contribution to renewing our understanding of the original text. The performance by poet Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze of “The Wife of Bath at Brixton Market” (2009) offers an interesting example of interaction between Chaucer and an engaged audience. How do adaptations of Chaucer in public or alternative spaces broaden the accessibility and scope of his work? Similarly, it would be pertinent to reflect on how contemporary projects such as Patience Agbabi’s Refugee Tales (2016) use Chaucer’s heritage to address issues of memory, identity, and inclusion. These initiatives contribute to reevaluating and revitalizing the importance of Chaucer’s work in the contemporary cultural landscape.

Axis 2: Chaucer Himself, Incarnations, and Appropriation
Beyond the poems that have endured, the figure of Geoffrey Chaucer is sometimes summoned in various works and rewritings, bringing the medieval poet back to life. In Brian Helgeland’s film A Knight’s Tale (2001), which takes its title from one of Chaucer’s works, the poet is one of the main characters. Affected by a gambling problem, debts, and a tendency to put his pen at the service of the highest bidder, this protagonist seems far from the traditional representation of authors. However, his poetic talent and, above all, his oratorical skill increasingly find a place in the plot, contributing to making the character an adjunct to the hero, but also and above all a figure of a rebellious demagogue. What implications does this medievalist and trivial interpretation of Chaucer have on the poet’s posterity and his reception by the general public? While knowledge of the specifics of Chaucer’s life is not necessary to understand or appreciate Helgeland’s work, this biographical input nonetheless enriches readings of the film. What are the stakes, then, of articulating popular reception and scholarly knowledge in the representation of Chaucer’s figure? This same association of the popular and the scholarly is precisely what guides the integration of the poet into Thierry la Fronde in 1965 (season 3, episode 10), recalling the series’ pedagogical and entertaining ambition, mixing fictional characters with easily identifiable historical figures. Each time, Chaucer is clearly named, and often subtle references to his work or biography, apparently aimed at a knowledgeable audience, pepper his staging. It is from this perspective that he also appears as a ghost in 2009 in The Simpsons series (season 20, episode 18), in reference to his burial in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey. What do these uses of the poet’s image in popular culture say about his contemporary reception? Who are these nods aimed at, and what do they bring to the works concerned?

Communication proposals, approximately 2000 characters in length, should be sent by February 3rd, 2025, jointly to Justine Breton (justine.breton@univ-lorraine.fr) and Jonathan Fruoco (jonathan.fruoco@gmail.com).

Scientific Committee
Candace Barrington (Central Connecticut State University)
Justine Breton (SAMA, Université de Lorraine)
Vincent Ferré (CERC, Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle)
Jonathan Fruoco (CREA, Université Paris-Nanterre)
Patrick Moran (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Karin Ueltschi-Courchinoux (CRIMEL, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne)