Geoffrey Chaucer (–1400)

63. Troilus and Criseyde (Broadview Editions) by Geoffrey Chaucer
editors: James McMurrin Dean & Harriet Spiegel (2016)
OPD: 1385
format: 450-page oversized paperback with the original text and notes on the same page.
acquired: April 2022 read: (Aug 26) Sep 8 – Nov 19 time reading: 34:48, 4.6 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: Middle English epic poetry theme: Chaucer
locations: Troy
about the author: Chaucer (~1342 – October 25, 1400) was an English poet and civil servant.

extended excerpts:
- Le Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure (c1160), translated from French by Robert K. Gordon (1934)
- Il Filostrato by Giovanni Boccaccio (c1340), translated from Italian by Robert K. Gordon (1934)
- The Testament of Cresseid by Robert Henryson (1532). Translated by the editors (2016)
- Metamorphoses by Ovid (7 ce), translated from Latin by Rolfe Humphries 1961
- Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) by Ovid (3 bce), translated by Rolfe Humphries 1957
- The Consolation of Philosophy by Ancius Boethius (524), translated from Latin by Victor Watts (1969, 1999)
- On Love by Andreas Capellanus (c1190), translated from French by P.G. Walsh (1993)
- Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun (c1230/c1275), translated from French by Charles Dahlberg (1971)
- Canzoniere Sonnet 132 by Francesco Petrarch (c1370), translated from Italian by A.S. Kline (2002)
- Commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio by Macrobius (c400), translated from Latin by William Harris Stahl (1952,1990,2009)
- excerpts from Lovesick in the Middle Ages: The Viaticum and Its Commentaries by Mary Wack (1990)
--- Viaticum by Constantine the African (1000s) - a Latin translation from Arabic of Zad Al Mussafir by Ibn Al Jazzar (900's)
--- Glosses on the Viaticum by Gerald of Berry (c1236), translated from Latin
--- Treatise on the Viaticum by Bona Fortuna (c1320), translated from Latin

Well. I can't possibly review this. What I can say is that this Broadview Press edition is fantastic. It has the original language with some spelling clarifications, along with notes. And Chaucer is readable enough today that that is enough information and allows the reader to enjoy the poetry, especially play of sound. I don't think Chaucer is readable without help (or extensive knowledge of the London dialect of Middle English).

Also, I really enjoyed this. It's a highlight of my year. I read it in the morning for 20 to 40 minutes and relished it, reading only six or so pages at a sitting. The plot is simple. The text is largely dialogue, one character speaking for pages at a time. I never felt in danger of getting lost and I never worried about breaking off at any point, or about pressing on until some conclusion.

Also, it's humor. I never felt the need to take anything seriously, even Chaucer's philosophical side points. This surprised me a little because everything I read about this led to me expect some deep Christian-era-friendly thoughts. This is supposed to be Chaucer's big serious effort at artistry and reputation. But this is funny, elegant and funny. And, also, it is not clean. The tone is always playful, as playful as the language.

I think the language and linguistic play is the main point here. I enjoyed this aspect so much.

The best character is Pandarus, the uncle of Criseyde and friend of Trojan prince, Troilus. He is a gamer through and through. The game is how to get his niece linked to the number one bachelor in Troy. I couldn't help imagining that Chaucer saw himself in Pandarus, but that's my impression. The character Troilus, meanwhile, is comically ridiculous. He's spineless and roiling in bed suffering from lovesickness. When Pandarus sets the world up for him, and the world is his in Book 3, he comes alive a little. He is thoroughly tragic in Book 4, and it's almost moving until we remember him in bed in back in the early books. Criseyde (maybe pronounced "Christ-eyed", but the pronunciation, based on the rhymes, seems ambiguous) is ultimately practical. She's a convincing lover, and I was left thinking I never got her right, that it was never clear where her true feelings lay. Somehow Pandarus makes the match, but he gets no benefit from it or its tragic end. The more Pandarus was present, the better Chaucer's writing was, in my opinion.

I wish I could conclude. One for the brave, thoroughly rewarding.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/354226#8291135… (altro)

Since I was hanging around Kent and had been walking the ancient pilgrimage route, I thought I should get to know its most famous literary product. I finally found this book in a charity shop in Canterbury itself, and it seemed perfect - while it only contains fifteen of the tales (and some of those excerpts), fully half the book is made up of contextual information and analysis, so I could truly understand the work.
I was a little intimidated at first at the idea of reading in Middle English, but soon found that although it does take an effort, the poetic form of most of the tales naturally encouraged me to keep reading.
I found the Canterbury Tales a lot more engaging than the Decameron, mostly because the variety of characters were given strong and memorable personalities which occasionally would come into conflict. I could only imagine the knight's horror as his proud tale of honour and love is followed up by a slew of fart jokes and personal attacks.
On the other hand as a modern reader I found the Tales seemed a lot more hostile to women than the Decameron. It soon became tedious to read all the whinging about the terrible curse of marriage and the fickleness of wives. At least we women have the Wife of Bath in our corner!
The contextual material that followed was quite good, but the analysis...well it reminded me why I quit studying English literature despite being good enough to earn a scholarship: the tendency for literary analysis to be filled with insufferable pomposity that masks a distinct lack of substance.
On the one hand, one of the included essays did provide an interesting response to my biggest issue with the work, pitching the various stories involving marriage as a debate that concludes in support of marital harmony. And there were a few other useful tidbits I managed to pick up, like the contradictory character of the Prioress - her propriety perhaps hiding a hateful heart.
On the other, it took me about three times as long to read this section as it did the rest of the book combined. When it is easier to read actual non-Englishthan the modern English essays discussing it, I think there is an issue. Of course, this book is intended for university-level students of English literature so it could be a matter of me being the wrong audience, and I'd hate to be one of those "I don't understand it, therefore it's bad" cretins, but I can't help but feel the obfuscating language was covering for a lack of real substance.
An okay introduction, but in future I'll probably seek out a different version!… (altro)

Note that this is a review of Vincent F. Hopper's Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Selected): An Interlinear Translation. Most of the other reviews on this page are of The Canterbury Tales in general, in editions which should have been linked to that work, not to this interlinear Chaucer. As far as I'm concerned, the Canterbury Tales is a five star work, but the Hoppner version is about two stars.

This is an idea that works a lot better in theory than in practice. I have quite a few interlinear editions of various works -- the Greek Bible, Beowulf, others. For a language that is not English, the benefits of an interlinear are obvious and the detriments relatively few (unless you're trying to force yourself to become truly fluent in the source language, anyway). I had hoped that that would be true of Chaucer, too.

It isn't. Period. End of story.

Part of that is the way this interlinear is done. A good interlinear presents the main text continuously, usually with the translated text in smaller type below the main one. There is a clear main text and a clear subordinate text. This isn't done that way. Chaucer's text and Hopper's are placed one above the other, with Chaucer's text in roman type and Hopper's in italic, then a blank line. Thus the first three lines are:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
When April with his showers sweet

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
The drought of March has pierced to the root,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
And bathed every vein in such liquor,

This format makes it much too easy to read both lines by accident, when one really wants to read only Chaucer and refer to the interlinear only when necessary. Particularly since the modern English text is pedestrian. What's more, the modern English text sometimes is literal and sometimes is pretty free, which doesn't really help with understanding the Middle English. Hopper's is really a text that belongs as a parallel, not an interlinear. That would save paper, too, and let Hopper include more tales.

And therein lies the other problem: This isn't really the Canterbury Tales. This thing has truly pressed most of the life out of the Tales. As well as misrepresenting them.

Oh, it's no great loss to drop a few tales. The Physician's Tale is no loss, and the Squire's Tale is enough to make your head spin. And the greatest of the Tales -- the Knight's, the Franklin's, the Wife of Bath's, the Pardoner's, the Nun's Priest's -- are here.

But so is the Prioress's Tale, and if any tale should be suppressed, it's that horrid racist one! And the Miller's Tale is gone, and so is "Sir Thopas"! You can't do Chaucer without Sir Thopas! I'd really like to have the Canon's Yeoman's Tale, too.

Now I understand why the Miller's Tale is gone -- it was too dirty for 1948. But if you don't have the Miller's Tale, then you don't have the link between the Knight's Tale and the Miller's Tale, and you miss much of the point of the Canterbury Tales, which often is not the tales themselves but the links. Yes, the greatest of the tales -- the five I listed above, in particular -- can stand on their own, but the fun of the rest lies in the links. Hopper turned a continuous work, even if one that was never completed and lacks many connections -- into a mere anthology.

Another strange effect of the interlinear translation is that it prevents Hopper from providing an adequate set of notes. There are only about six pages. So the note on "at the Tabard as I lay" says only that the Tabard is "The name of the inn." Which is true, but not particularly useful. It's important to know that the Tabard was a real inn, in a real Southwark, managed by a real Harry Bailly, from which actual pilgrims set out to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. (By the way, there is no gloss at all on "The holy blisful martir for to seek" -- no explanation of the cult of Becket!)

A few other comments: The introduction is pretty weak, though that's not all Hopper's fault; Chaucer Studies have come a long way since his time. But it's still not adequate, and there really isn't enough information about what Middle English edition Hopper used as his base.

All in all, a dreadful disappointment. Admittedly I read Middle English a lot better than most -- I can often go many lines of Chaucer without needing a gloss. But I genuinely think that anyone who wants to read Chaucer (which should be every native speaker of English -- we're talking about the man who made English a great literary language!) would do better with the Riverside Chaucer or its equivalent: You get all the Chaucer, all the notes, and all the meaning.… (altro)