Chaucer and the Tradition of the Roman Antique

407 Pages·1992·7.68 MB·English

by  Barbara Nolan

This is a detailed investigation of Chaucer's poetics in two of his master
works — Troilus and Criseyde and the Knight's Tale — in relation to an im-
portant continental narrative tradition. It is the first such wide-ranging
study since Charles Muscatine's seminal Chaucer and the French Tradition
and the first book to argue in detail that Chaucer's poems, Boccaccio's
Filostrato and Teseida, and the twelfth-century French romans antiques par-
ticipate in a distinct formal tradition within the protean field of medieval
romance. By close examination of the formal and ethical designs of each
poem, Barbara Nolan explores both the compositional practices shared by
all of the poets she discusses, and their calculated differences from each
other. Her analysis culminates in a full examination of Chaucer's richly
original responses to the continental verse narratives from which he bor-
rowed. No other study offers so full and careful a delineation of the com-
positional features that distinguish the roman antique from other traditions
of romance in the Middle Ages.

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 15
Chaucer and the Tradition of the Roman Antique

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 15
General Editor. Professor Alastair Minnis, Professor of Medieval Literature,
University of York
Editorial Board
Professor Piero Boitani (Professor of English, Rome)
Professor Patrick Boyde, FBA (Serena Professor of Italian, Cambridge)
Professor John Burrow, FBA (Winterstoke Professor of English, Bristol)
Professor Alan Deyermond, FBA (Professor of Hispanic Studies, London)
Professor Peter Dronke, FBA (Professor of Medieval Latin Literature, Cambridge)
Dr Tony Hunt (St Peter's College, Oxford)
Professor Nigel Palmer
(Professor of German Medieval and Linguistic Studies, Oxford)
Professor Winthrop Wetherbee (Professor of English, Cornell)
This series of critical books seeks to cover the whole area of literature written in the
major medieval languages - the main European vernaculars, and medieval Latin and
Greek - during the period c. 1100-c. 1500. Its chief aim is to publish and stimulate
fresh scholarship and criticism on medieval literature, emphasis being placed on
understanding major works of poetry, prose and drama in relation to the
contemporary culture and learning which fostered them.
Titles published
Dante's Inferno: Difficulty and dead poetry, by Robin Kirkpatrick
Dante and Difference: Writing in the Commedia, by Jeremy Tambling
Troubadours and Irony, by Simon Gaunt
Piers Plowman and the New Anticlericalism, by Wendy Scase
The Cantar de mio Cid: Poetic creation in its economic and social contexts,
by Joseph Duggan
The Medieval Greek Romance, by Roderick Beaton
Reformist Apocalypticism and Piers Plowman, by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton
Dante and the Medieval Other World, by Alison Morgan
The Theatre of Medieval Europe: New research in early drama, edited by Eckehard Simon
The Book of Memory: A study of memory in medieval culture, by Mary J. Carruthers
Rhetoric, Hermeneutics and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic traditions and
vernacular texts, by Rita Copeland
The Arthurian Romances of Chretien de Trojes: Once and future fictions, by Donald Maddox
Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority, by Nicholas Watson
Dreaming in the Middle Ages, by Steven F. Kruger
Chaucer and the Tradition of the Roman Antique, by Barbara Nolan
It
9 A
a i
y ' t'CO'-^t!
W ^'VO..
•
Jl».^ %O 1 LV CU*r.lr 7X\ L MdMi?'lip
• fi ;i (4V • v»'»iti I..--
f|
Historiated capital from the beginning of an elegant fourteenth-century copy
of Dante's Commedia, Biblioteca Ambrosiana MS C. 198.Inf. = S.P-5, fol. ir.
The author, who is reading in preparation for writing, sits at a desk with
several books before him. He is actively examining two volumes at once, a
third lies open on a stand to his left, and a fourth rests closed, ready for use.
Photograph by courtesy of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
Chaucer and the Tradition
of the Ionian Antique
BARBARA NOLAN
Professor of English, University of Virginia
| CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521391696
© Cambridge University Press 1992
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1992
This digitally printed version 2008
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Nolan, Barbara, 1941—
Chaucer and the tradition of the roman antique I Barbara Nolan.
p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in medieval literature; 15)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-39169-5
1. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Troilus and Criseyde. 2. Chaucer,
Geoffrey, d. 1400 - Knowledge - Literature. 3. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d.
1400. Knight's tale. 4. Romances, English - Classical influences.
5. Civlization, Classical, in literature. 6. Romances, English-
European influences. 7. Classicism - England. I. Title.
II. Series.
PR1896.N64 1992
821'.1 -dc20 91-27139 CIP
ISBN 978-0-521-39169-6 hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-05100-2 paperback
In memory of Carlo Pelliccia 1933—1988
Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso
intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo;
e sanza cura aver d'alcun riposo,
salimmo su, el primo e io secondo,
tanto chT vidi de le cose belle
che porta '1 ciel, per un pertugio tondo.
E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
(Dante, l^a commedia^ ed. Georgio Petrocchi, vol. vn,
pt. 2 [Mondadori, 1966], p. 598)