The Fabliaux: A New Verse Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin (review)

Not since John Duval’s translations of twenty fabliaux over twenty years ago has there been such a comprehensive English language collection published from the fabliaux corpus. Nathaniel E. Dubin’s sixty-nine English translations are long overdue and have been much anticipated, certainly by this reviewer. The Fabliaux: A New Verse Translation is well credentialed with R. Howard Bloch, Sterling Professor of French at Yale University, providing a glowing endorsement in his Introduction.

Bloch introduces the fabliaux providing essential information for a reader new to the genre: extant numbers; geographical origin; audience; and a brief history of their reception. Bloch also stresses the genre’s significance as an early form of literary realism and a window on the society that produced the works, as well as praising Dubin’s translation skills in bringing to life the vitality of the genre. Dubin’s Introduction serves as the translator’s caveat. He takes time to explain and justify his translations with regard to word choice, metre, and the idiosyncrasies and similarities between English and Old French; each fabliau is provided with the original and facing page translation so that the Old French is readily available.

Considering the heterogeneity of the fabliaux, Dubin has divided his translations well into three distinct sections, although many could easily fit into any of the three groups. Section I, ‘The Social Fabric’, showcases the myriad social groups that constituted medieval society. Hence, through a reliance on stereotypes and humour, the knight, clergy, peasantry, and bourgeois are all represented with a few specific tradespeople present as well: money changers, a fisherman, a shit carter, and a pseudo doctor. Section II, ‘The Comedy of Errors’, considers the ways in which tricksters achieved their goals and how the fableors thus realised the genre’s comedic constituent. The tales in this section reveal how the fableors used language in ingenious ways, for example, through euphemisms and lies, to bring about one character’s deception of another. The final section, ‘Sinning, Sex and Saintliness’, deals with moral issues and reveals a society’s anxieties about human behaviour and Christian salvation.

Overall, this is a very welcome book and a valuable source to students who are not proficient in Old French but who have a scholarly interest in the genre. I agree with Bloch that the translations are erudite and capture much of the vitality that the fabliaux embody; I do, however, have a few comments to make regarding the target audience. Bloch states that this book was written for the general reader, yet Dubin states that he has supplied explanatory notes for the general reader and to ‘assist students with difficult … passages in the Old French’ (p. xxxi). To my mind, I question the usefulness of the original text for a general readership or the provision of a list of extant fabliaux manuscripts. Conversely, those items are certainly useful for an academic audience; but an academic audience also requires so much more: more extensive notes on translation; a more comprehensive introduction to each section, arguably each tale; and a more recent bibliography (there are only three texts cited that have been published this century yet there is a wealth of contemporary critical studies available).

I appreciate that translating so many texts and to a very high standard is time consuming; however, I wonder if this book would have benefitted from a shared authorship, such as the DuVal and Eichmann combination of translator and commentator, as well as being multi-volumed. Notwithstanding, this is a very welcome text and will serve as an invaluable reference for many scholars embarking on a study of the fabliaux, and will be of great interest to the general reader.