Canadian Rapper Tones Down Chaucer for Schools

Canadian Baba Brinkman will be touring English schools this fall, turning the kiddies onto the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. His method was inevitable; he’s translated the English of the fourteenth century into rap. While purists may fuss over the lack of respect it shows to the first author to work in this odd language, it is far more interesting to note his editorial decisions. He had to tone down some of Chaucer’s racier stuff to make it acceptable to 15- and 16-year-olds in a classroom.

The project comes from Mr. Brinkman’s masters degree work on Chaucer. He explained, "I tried to keep the rap versions as close as possible to the original, so I went through the tales line-by-line. It was a painstaking process to convert Chaucer into a rhyme scheme that young people would like.” Undoubtedly. As an example, “goone towards that village” translates to “hit the streets.”

Mr. Brinkmann also told the BBC, “My work is really part of a tradition because Chaucer took his tales from classical literature and put them into the English used in his day. It was an original thing to do. The Knight's Tale came from a 10,000-line story from Boccaccio, which Chaucer brought down to 2,000. The rap version takes it to 400 lines. I don't want to replace Chaucer's version, which is wonderful, but it should help young people to see how vibrant his stories are and make them more interested.” And he’s right. Whenever there is a revival of Sophocles in the West End or on Broadway, it is almost never done in the original Greek. And, Chaucer’s own “his carpenter hadde newe a wyf, which that he lovede moore than his lyf; of eighteteene yeer she was of age. Jalous he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage” at least should be typeset anew.

What is much ironic is the reputation rap has for lowering the standards of discourse with obscenity. Yet Mr. Brinkmann said, “The Miller's Tale in particular contains a lot of references to genitalia and body humor. Some of it had to be censored to make it suitable for children.” And one suspects that in his version of the “The Monk’s Tale,” Samson does not “bust a cap in his enemy’s ass.”

The point is that literature is about life, and life has some rude and naughty bits to it. Shakespeare’s works are just as often about a drunken watchman as they are about the King of Scotland. Chaucer, his characters on a pilgrimage to the holy cathedral city of Canterbury, speaks of “fartyng.” And maybe, just maybe, Mr. Brinkmann’s Chaucer rap will get one teenager to look over the real thing.



© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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