Tue, Dec 23, 2025 page3

• Taiwanese academic translates ‘The Canterbury Tales’

  • Staff writer, with CNA
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  Geoffrey Chaucer is known as the “father of English literature” for his medieval classic The Canterbury Tales, a work that encouraged writers of his time to write in Middle English rather than French.

  More than six centuries later, Francis So (蘇其康) in October released the first complete Chinese translation of the work by a Taiwanese translator.

  Chaucer wrote during a period when French still dominated literary culture, So said.

  

  National Sun Yat-sen University emeritus professor Francis So poses in an undated photograph.

  Photo: CNA

  The publication of The Canterbury Tales helped popularize Middle English, while its poetic techniques shaped later writers, including William Shakespeare, he said.

  So said that he hopes the new edition will inspire more young researchers to carry forward Taiwan’s medieval Western literary studies.

  The Canterbury Tales, written in the late 14th century, depicts a pilgrimage of 30 Christians traveling from London to Canterbury to venerate St Thomas Becket, he said.

  The pilgrims take turns telling stories along the way, forming the work’s narrative frame.

  Although Chaucer originally planned 120 tales — two for each pilgrim on both the outward and return journeys — only 24 survived, preserved mainly in two manuscripts.

  So based his translation primarily on the more complete Ellesmere manuscript and consulted the Hengwrt manuscript, which academics believe reflects the earlier state of Chaucer’s text.

  So said he adopted “fidelity” as his guiding principle, preserving original syntax and imagery whenever possible.

  “If the original uses a noun, I try to translate it as a noun. Sometimes reversing the sentence order makes the Chinese more fluent, but it weakens fidelity to the text,” he said.

  To help contemporary Taiwanese readers navigate the unfamiliar medieval world, he included extensive annotations, particularly on material culture and institutional structures — a key feature distinguishing his version from the earlier translations, So said.

  So said that he credits his sensitivity to historical and cultural nuance to the rigorous comparative-literature training he received in the US, where he studied multiple languages and took courses in translation studies.

  So earned his bachelor’s degree at National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, and later received a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Washington in Seattle.

  He is an emeritus professor at National Sun Yat-sen University, where he has taught since 1983.

  Translation involves far more than “looking up words in a dictionary,” So said.

  To better reconstruct the medieval pilgrimage, he visited the British Museum in 2023 to consult historical materials and traveled portions of the route described in the text, So said.

  The Canterbury Tales continues to resonate today, he said, adding that contemporary British writer Zadie Smith drew inspiration from “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” for her play The Wife of Willesden.

  J.K. Rowling has also acknowledged that “The Tale of the Three Brothers” in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is an allusion to “The Pardoner’s Tale,” he said

  So said that there were no academics in Taiwan specializing in medieval literature when he studied at NTU, and he resolved to help establish the discipline when he undertook graduate studies in the US.

  “When we founded the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies in 2007, that meant the establishment of a tradition,” he said, adding that nearly two decades after the founding of the association, he is heartened to see more emerging academics entering the field.
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