"Confessio Amantis": A Modern Prose Translation.
- Author/Editor
- Byrd, David Gatlin, trans.
- Title
- "Confessio Amantis": A Modern Prose Translation.
- Published
- Byrd, David Gatlin, trans. "'Confessio Amantis': A Modern Prose Translation." Ph.D. Dissertation. University of South Carolina, 1965. Dissertation Abstracts International 28.2. Full text available at ProQuest.
- Review
- Byrd's dissertation presents a complete prose translation of the "Confessio Amantis" into Modern English, using Macaulay's edition as its base text. In doing so, it does not include translations of the earlier, Ricardian, versions of the poem, except for the dedication to Richard in the Prologue (which is covered in the introduction). The introduction gives no indication of the intended purpose or audience for the translation, though it would clearly serve well in the classroom. While each book is translated in its own chapter, and section headings generally follow Macaulay, no line numbers are given within each book, making it difficult to cross-reference with the ME original. The translation itself is quite readable, and literal, though it cannot therefore reflect much of Gower's complexity of diction. For example, In Book 1, the narrator states "loves lawe is out of reule" (1.18). Byrd translates as "love's law is beyond regulation," which, while it certainly reflects the valence of authority in the original, it nevertheless lacks the implication that love cannot also be measured, which reflects the initial invocation of the world's ever shifting scales, or balances. As Byrd points out in the Introduction, the "Middle English Dictionary" had only been completed partially through G at the time of writing, and some choices would have benefitted from that resource. In the Prologue, for example, during the narrator's discussion of the ills of the world being caused my humanity, he states "Therwhile himself stant out of here / The remenant wol noght acorde" (Prol.962-3). Byrd translates as "for while man himself remains out of joint, other things will not be in harmony" (17). While "out of joint" reflects the general notion here, the MED suggests "out of order," or "unhinged," as more literal. The Introduction and explanatory notes are minimal, running eight pages and 17-30 notes per book, respectively. [BWG. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1]
- Date
- 1965
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
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