Shades of gray problems of modernization and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Abstract

Since Chaucer's death, a large body of modernized editions of his work has amassed, many of them fragmentary in nature and few complete, yet valuable for what they reveal about the transformations in style and meaning that inevitably occur as a text undergoes translation. Given that many modern readers no longer choose to approach Chaucer in his native tongue, an analysis of these changes is valuable. First, it exposes what is behind the modem reader's resistance to Chaucer's Middle English dialect, which can be easily understood by most readers today after a little exposure. A close study of modernized versions of Chaucer's works will also reveal important characteristics of Chaucer's multifaceted readership, particularly because of the tendency of translators to transform Chaucer after the fashion of the literary period in which they live. Finally, the catalog of translations is an index to the reception that Chaucer's writings have found since his own time, reflecting the taste of the various eras in which translation has been done.