Influence of Italian humanism on Chaucer explained

Contact between Geoffrey Chaucer and the Italian humanists Petrarch or Boccaccio has been proposed by scholars for centuries.[1] More recent scholarship tends to discount these earlier speculations because of lack of evidence. As Leonard Koff remarks, the story of their meeting is "a 'tydying' worthy of Chaucer himself".[2] [3] [4] [5]

Chaucer's trips to mainland Europe

There are government records that show Chaucer was absent from England visiting Genoa and Florence from December 1372 until the middle of 1373.[4] [6] He went with Sir James de Provan and John de Mari, eminent merchants hired by the king, and some soldiers and servants.[6] [7] During this Italian business trip for the king to arrange for a settlement of Genoese merchants these scholars say it is likely that sometime in 1373 Chaucer made contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio.[4] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Milan 1368: The wedding of the Duke of Clarence and Violante Visconti

They believe it plausible that Chaucer not only met Petrarch at this wedding but also Boccaccio.[6] [10] This view today, however, is far from universally accepted. William T. Rossiter, in his 2010 book on Chaucer and Petrarch argues that the key evidence supporting a visit to the continent in this year is a warrant permitting Chaucer to pass at Dover, dated 17 July. No destination is given, but even if this does represent a trip to Milan, he would have missed not only the wedding, but also Petrarch, who had returned to Pavia on 3 July.[13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]

Canterbury Tales

The Clerk's Tale

However, this does not mean necessarily that Chaucer himself met Petrarch.[20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]

Other works

The Legend of Good Women

Chaucer followed the general plan of Boccaccio's work On Famous Women in The Legend of Good Women.[21] [27] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37]

Alternative viewpoints

The Knight's Tale uses Boccaccio's Teseida and the Filostrato is the major source of Troilus and Creseyde.

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Thomas Warton, The history of English poetry, from the close of the eleventh to the commencement of the eighteenth century (first published London: J. Dodsley, etc.; Oxford: Fletcher, 1774–81) and William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English poets: delivered at the Surrey Institution (first published London: Taylor and Hessey, 1818): both extracted in
  2. Koff 11
          • , p. 45
  4. (Scholars being Professor Walter William Skeat and Dr. Furnivall)
  5. , p. 40
  6. , p. 251
  7. , p. 169
  8. , p. 191
  9. Crow, Martin M. et al, Chaucer Life-records.
  10. Thomas Warton, The history of English poetry, from the close of the eleventh to the commencement of the eighteenth century (first published London: J. Dodsley, etc.; Oxford: Fletcher, 1774–81) extracted in
  11. , p. 189
  12. (footnotes: Froissart was also present.)
    • , p. 41
    • , p. 44
  14. , p. 98
  15. , pp. 454–456
  16. Skeat (1900), p. xvii
  17. http://www.mythfolklore.net/2003frametales/weeks/week10/background.htm Boccaccio's Decameron
  18. Book: Florence Nightengale Jones . Boccaccio and his imitators in German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian literature, The Decameron . 1910 . The University of Chicago Press . Internet Archive.
  19. , p. 349
  20. Boitani, p. 291
  21. The Chaucer Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 163–165 (Fall, 1989), p. 164; Penn State University Press
  22. Web site: Petrarch . Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) . Petri . Liukkonen . Kuusankoski Public Library . Finland . https://web.archive.org/web/20100312010428/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/petrarca.htm . 12 March 2010 . dead . dmy-all .
  23. http://www.columbia.edu/dlc/garland/deweever/B/boccacci.htm Boccaccio
  24. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/4548/98.05.02.html.txt;jsessionid=4245F1EF068356E4E5DF61942BC4C39B?sequence=2 Wallace, Chaucerian Polity (Bishop)
  25. http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gchaucer/bl-gchau-can-monk-m.htm The Monk's Tale – Middle English
  26. http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gchaucer/bl-gchau-can-monk.htm The Monk's Tale – Modern English
  27. , p. 195
  28. , p. 375
  29. Skeat (1900), p. xxviii
  30. , p. 58
  31. Skeat (1900), p. xxix
  32. https://archive.org/stream/boccacciochaucer00borgrich/boccacciochaucer00borgrich_djvu.txt "Boccaccio and Chaucer" by Peter Borghesi, Bologna, 1912
  33. , p. 187
  34. , p. 57
  35. , p. 99
  36. , p. 376
  37. , p. 282

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