Contest, Translation, and the Chaucerian Text

Taking as its subject three Middle English texts, The Romaunt of the Rose (anon.), The Belle Dame Sans Mercy (Richard Roos), and An ABC to the Virgin (Geoffrey Chaucer), this book examines these texts in terms of their status as translations from French into English. It develops a critical framework through which to situate the texts in relation to their French sources: Le Roman de la Rose (Guillaume de Lorris/Jean de Meun), La Belle Dame sans mercy (Alain Chartier), and Le Pèlerinage de la Vie humaine (Guillaume de Deguilleville), focusing on a consideration of the act of translation as broad, cultural, and bibliographical transfer, as well as precise, linguistic exercise. All three French texts sparked contest or debate, and this book investigates the contributions made to these debates by their English translations, in terms of language used and presentation in MS and print. All three middle English translations are 'Chaucerian' -- that is to say, linked to Chaucer in different ways -- and this book reconsiders the centrality of 'the Chaucerian' as the defining lens through which we approach them.In so doing, it develops new ways of reading these late-medieval Franco-English verse translations, and redefines critical notions of 'the Chaucerian text'.