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KANO KOICHI
Department Undergraduate School , School of Agriculture Position Associate Professor |
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| Language | English |
| Publication Date | 2018/05 |
| Type | Academic Journal |
| Title | Preamble to the First Japanese Translation of The Canterbury Tales: a social mirror and a cultural bridge |
| Contribution Type | Sole-authored |
| Journal | Literature Compass |
| Journal Type | Another Country |
| Publisher | Wiley |
| Details | In this essay, I explain the history and characteristics of translation by Kenji Kaneko, the first Japanese translator of The Canterbury Tales, and describe how he transplants a different literary culture. Kaneko invited Japanese readers to the unknown medieval Western world, putting Chaucer's Middle English into forms and idioms familiar to Japanese readers. In the prewar version, censorship caused random parts of the main text to be deleted, but the postwar version provides a complete translation and conveys a truer sense of the original text. |