[Review of Ann McMillan's translation:]

Geoffrey Chaucer abandoned writing the Legend of Good Women halfway through. When you read this modernization, you may be tempted to do the same.

I am inherently biased toward liking anything that makes the Legend more accessible to modern readers; there is a lot of argument over whether Chaucer was "really" a feminist, but there is no doubt that he had more sympathy for women than most writers of his situation and era. The best guess as to the history of this work -- probably his last major writing before the Canterbury Tales -- is that he was trying to create a catalogue of women's virtues and men's vices, but found it so confining (since the culture of the era allowed only a limited set of women's positive traits) that he gave up. And headed off to Canterbury, and gave us Dorigen, and the Wife of Bath, instead.

Chaucer probably knew what he was doing when he gave up. I wish there were a Chaucer alive today who could try to do a real Legend, featuring all the virtues that women actually possess. There might be less need for the women's rights movement, and the #MeToo movement, if there were. But, in 1386, he was stuck.

And trying to bring him into the twentieth century doesn't help much. Ann McMillan gave it a try, but several weaknesses mar the result.

First, she isn't a poet. Dull as Chaucer's Legend gets to be after you have read three or four or nine tales that all feature pretty much the same cardboard lead character, it is at least beautifully written. It's Chaucer! But McMillan appears to have tried to preserve the meaning rather than the words (she admits to making a literal rendering), while still sticking with Chaucer's pentameter couplets. And it just doesn't work. It took me just three lines to start wondering if McMillan was counting syllables correctly. I checked, and yes, she is; the lines are pentameter. But the stresses are so wrong that it's a tongue-twister to just try to read the lyrics.

A second defect was just bad timing, but it is a defect: This book came out in 1987, the very year the Riverside Chaucer -- now the standard edition -- came out. But McMillan, who had no doubt begun her work much earlier, instead translated the text of the F. N. Robinson's edition. Robinson would have been the best edition to use -- in 1986. In 1987, it was pretty definitely not the best choice.

The third problem is the notes. There are only about six and a half pages. That's just not enough to explain Chaucer's sources, what he did with them, how his social context affected the story, and what others had done with the same tale. Take someone like Medea. Today, knowing the Greek legends, we think of her as jealous and wild and, frankly, wicked. It takes more than a few sentences of notes to explain why Chaucer included this "crazy ex-girlfriend" among his "good women"!

There is, at least, a good introduction -- e.g. it opens by reminding us that, in this context, "Legend" does not mean "fiction" but "old story with a deep truth even though the details are hazy." There is also a discussion of the philosophical sources and viewpoint -- although some of it seemed strangely irrelevant to me. And there are (black-and-white) images of some famous paintings of the various Good Women. All this sets the mood -- and then you get to the poem itself, and it dumps you right out.

Bottom line: If you want to read the Legend... get a real Chaucer (e.g. the Riverside), and read it for the poetry. It isn't that hard! And the Riverside Chaucer has a glossary. If you need a crib, this will do. But it's only a crib. It isn't a true rendering. It just isn't Chaucer.

Interesting as an early edition of the legende ( )