Comedy in Chaucer and Boccaccio (Chaucer Studies) (Chaucer Studies, 40)

168 Pages·2009·0.974 MB·English

by  Carol Falvo Heffernan

spine 18mm A
db 31 May 09
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 comic tales, 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 he
and Boccaccio shared the same comic literary tradition stretching
back into antiquity. By putting the tales and the characters side-by-
side, new light is thrown on Chaucer’s inventiveness and mode of
working.
Professor CARol hEFFERNAN teaches in the Department of English,
Rutgers university, New Jersey.
Cover: A fifteenth-century illustration of Decameron 9, 6: Paris, Bibl. Natl.
MS. Fr. 239, fol. 256 v (by permission of the Bibliothèque Nationale de
France).
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BoYDEll & BREWER ltd
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CHAUCER STUDIES XL
ComEDy In CHAUCER AnD BoCCACCIo
Whilst many of Chaucer’s sources have been exhaustively studied, rela-
tively little work has been done on the influence of his contemporary
Boccaccio, a gap which this book aims to fill. It examines the relation-
ship of the comic tales, the so-called fabliaux, in Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron, suggesting that not only did Chaucer
and Boccaccio share the same comic literary tradition stretching back
into antiquity, but that Chaucer drew on the Italian’s work; 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 Jeresey.
CHAUCER STUDIES
ISSn 0261–9822
Previously published volumes in this series
are listed at the back of this book
ComEDy In
CHAUCER AnD BoCCACCIo
CARoL FALvo HEFFERnAn
D. S. BREWER
© Carol Falvo Heffernan 2009
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
The right of Carol Falvo Heffernan to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published 2009
D. S. Brewer, Cambridge
ISBn 978–1–84384–201–9
D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Po Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, ny 14620, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available
from the British Library
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
1 Introductory matters 1
2 The Comic Inheritance of Boccaccio and Chaucer 20
3 Parallel Comic Tales in the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales 38
4 Antifraternal Satire in Boccaccio and Chaucer 72
5 Adding Comedy: Boccaccio’s Filostrato and Chaucer’s 101
Troilus and Criseyde
Conclusion 129
Bibliography 135
Index 147

In memory of
Thomas Farel Heffernan
1933–2009

Preface and Acknowledgments
It has been said that tragedy appeals to those who feel and comedy to those
who think. The complete works of Chaucer (1342?–1400) and Boccaccio
(1313–1375) contain enough of each genre to satisfy the tastes of both kinds
of readers. The measure of the artistry of the two medieval poets can only
be appreciated by studying the full range of their writing. Without intending
to elevate the comic works of Chaucer and Boccaccio above the rest, this
book focuses on their comic tales. Chaucer wrote his late in his career when
he had the power of someone who had found his true voice and knew fully
how to use it. Boccaccio’s comic tales were written midway in his life; he
began writing his great narrative masterwork in 1350, shortly after the Black
Death struck Florence (1347–49). Chaucer and Boccaccio are borrowers of
tales told by others. Part of their art is to know how to select tales that suit
their styles and that they can better. Judging from the owners of the extant
Decameron manuscripts, Boccaccio’s collection appealed to the merchant
class. When Chaucer wrote his second masterpiece, the Canterbury Tales,
he clearly had in mind a broader audience than that for which he wrote his
first, Troilus and Criseyde, a courtly narrative.
Comedy in Chaucer and Boccaccio examines the relationship of the comic
tales – the so-called fabliaux – in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s
Decameron. There is surprisingly little direct study of the comic in Boccaccio
and Chaucer. The present book advances the view that not only did Chaucer
and Boccaccio share the same comic literary tradition stretching back into
antiquity but that Chaucer drew on the Italian’s work. It is a curious fact
that while one’s students and the general reader tend to assume that the tale
collections are closely related, scholars of Chaucer have, until very recently,
doubted that the English poet even knew of the Decameron. Chaucer’s sources
in Boccaccio were long thought to be limited to the Teseida, the Filocolo, the
Filostrato, and the Ameto – works that influenced Chaucer’s more “serious”
narratives (i.e., romances such as the Knight’s Tale and Troilus and Criseyde).
Because the two authors inherited a common comic literary tradition,
establishing connections between Chaucer and his predecessor’s comic tales
is difficult. There are often other close analogues. one needs to be aware not
only of the relationship of their comic tales to the vernacular literature of their
day but to the body of comic literature that is anterior. After an introductory
chapter that explores the question of when Chaucer’s work became known
in Italy and that also examines historical ties between England and Italy,
Chaucer and Boccaccio, Chapter 2 discusses comic works and ideas about