Chaucer in China ("Global Chaucers" Cross-Posting)

by JONATHAN HSY

Above: On left, undated photo of Fang Chong (方重). On right, Chaucer portrait from Fang's 1983 Chinese translation of The Canterbury Tales. (Chaucer image evidently based upon the well-known Bodleian portrait; Fang photo found here)

Candace Barrington and I are very excited to be presenting a paper at an upcoming conference in St. Andrews on “The Middle Ages in the Modern World” (see information and abstracts HERE). In addition to introducing people to the rapidly expanding Global Chaucers project--which I've already blogged about on In The Middle (see HERE)--we plan to discuss how one Chaucerian narrative (The Miller’s Tale) gets re-appropriated in three different languages. One of the adaptations we discuss is a 1983 Chinese translation by Fang Chong (方重).

So ... do you want to find out what happens to dirty words in The Miller's Tale when the story moves from Middle English poetry to modern Chinese prose? Read more about it on the Global Chaucers blog (HERE).