From the Beeb: Chaucer's tales become rap songs.
Posted on July 28, 2005 01:17 PM. Filed under: books & lit.A rap artist has translated some of the best known works of poet Geoffrey Chaucer into hip-hop to make them appeal to schoolchildren.
Canadian Baba Brinkman wants modern teenagers to warm to the 14th-century Canterbury Tales.
He is to tour English schools with his versions of the Pardoner's Tale, Miller's Tale and Wife of Bath's Tale.
Some of Chaucer's original bawdier language had to be "toned down" for his young audience.
Baba told the BBC News website: "All the themes of rap music are there in the tales: jealousy, anger, greed, lust.
"The Miller's Tale in particular contains a lot of references to genitalia and body humour. Some of it had to be censored to make it suitable for children."
Baba had the idea of converting Chaucer into rap when he was doing a masters' degree on the poet in the late 1990s. [continue]