Comedy in Chaucer and Boccaccio - 9781843842019

Comedy in Chaucer and BoccaccioAuthor(s): Carol Falvo Heffernan\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: D.S. Brewer\nISBN-13: 9781843842019, 978-1843842019\nSynopsis\nA comparison of Chaucer and Boccaccio sheds new light on both writers, indicating their mutual use of ancient comic literary traditions.\n\nAlthough 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.\n\n Professor CAROL FALVO HEFFERNAN teaches at the Departm.