Description
Book SynopsisA comparison of Chaucer and Boccaccio sheds new light on both writers, indicating their mutual use of ancient comic literary traditions. Although many of Chaucer's sources have been exhaustively studied, relatively little work has been done on the influence of his contemporary Boccaccio, a gap which this book aims to fill. It examines the relationship of the comictales, the so-called fabliaux, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio's Decameron, demonstrating that not only did Chaucer draw on Boccaccio's work, but that they shared the same comic literary tradition stretching back into antiquity. By putting the tales and the characters side-by-side, it throws new light on Chaucer's inventiveness and mode of working. Professor CAROL FALVO HEFFERNAN teaches at the Department of English, Rutgers University, New Jersey.
Trade ReviewCarol Falvo Heffernan's achievement is to have written a full and balanced synthesis while extending the discussion to a comparative evaluation of Boccaccio's writing. [Her] study will provoke much further debate. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements Introductory Matters The Comic Inheritance of Boccaccio and Chaucer Parallel Comic Tales in the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales Antifraternal Satire Boccaccio's Filostrato and Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: Adding Comedy Conclusion Bibliography
