Geoffrey Chaucer: Die Canterbury-Erzählungen: Mittelenglisch und Deutsch trans. by Fritz Kemmler, ed. by Jörg O. Fichte (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER FRITZ KEMMLER, trans.; ]bRG 0. FICHTE, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: Die Canterbury-Erzi:ihlungen: Mittelenglisch undDeutsch. 3 vols. Gold­ mannKlassikermitErlauterungen.Munich: Goldmann Verlag, 1989. Pp. 1968. DM 74.40. These three compact volumes provide the complete text of The Canterbury Tales in modern German prose and in Chaucerian Middle English. In addition, they provide much valuable critical information by way of a scholarly critical apparatus. We have long known how marvelously well Shakespeare translates into German. As a consequence one often hears that the three greatest classical "German" dramatists are Goethe, Schiller und Shakespeare! How well does Chaucer do in German? These volumes only indirectly address the question ofChaucer as poet in German because thetranslations are into German prose; however, the prose translations are accurate, excit­ ing, and moving and do simulate much ofthe aesthetic quality ofChaucer's prosody. Surely as good a test as any is to "hear" the opening lines of The General Prologue in the modern German prose translation: Wenn der April mit seinen sussen Schauern die Trockenheit des Marz bis zur Wurzel durchdrungen und jede Ader mit dem Saft getrankc hat,