Boitani, Piero, and Jill Mann, eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Revised version of the 1986 original, now with seventeen essays, five of which are new. Revised pieces are "The Social and Literary Scene in England" (Paul Strohm); "Chaucer's Italian Inheritance" (David Wallace); "Old Books Brought to New Life in…
Reprints materials from The Riverside Chaucer, with facing-page Italian translation in verse and prose, following the original. Volume 1 contains the dream poems and TC. Volume 2 includes CT. Both volumes include short introductions to the individual…
Boitani, Piero,and Anna Torti, eds.
Woodbridge, Suffolk; Rochester, N.Y. : D. S. Brewer, 1999.
Ten essays by various authors, originally presented at a symposium on "The Body and Soul in Medieval Literature." Most of the essays focus on Middle English literature, including some comparisons with medieval French and Italian works and some later…
Boitani, Piero.
Andre Crepin, ed. L'imagination medievale: Chaucer et ses contemporains (Paris: Publications de l'Association des Medievistes Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Superieur, 1991), pp. 107-32.
Discusses the conflict between the letter and the spirit in NPT, providing a short survey of the history of literal interpretation. Chaucer freely accepts the letter as literature without excluding the morality. The Priest makes us turn away from…
While using the Italians' narrative structures in MkT, Chaucer twists the styles and themes of Dante and Boccaccio. The pathos and direct narrative of Chaucer's Hugelyn supplant the horror and ambiguities of Dante's Ugolino. Chaucer's Cenobia…
Boitani, Piero.
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1990), pp. 185-98.
Boitani studies the chain of literary works that stem from Chaucer's KnT, namely "The Two Noble Kinsmen" of Shakespeare and Fletcher and Dryden's "Palamon and Arcite." The story of Palamon and Arcite has features in common with that of Troilus and…
Boitani, Piero.
Joerg O. Fichte, ed. Chaucer's Frame Tales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 83-128.
Examines Marian prayers and images in Dante, de Guilleville, Petrarch, and Chaucer, who use prayers to the Virgin at crucial moments in their works. A comparative study illuminates religious ideals and narrative strategies in CT (PrT, SNT), TC, and…
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani. The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1989), pp. 1-19.
Comparing the old man in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" and the old man in PardT, Boitani explores the medieval "other" or "discarded image of the universe," which depends on a "hermeneutic openness" that makes the modern reader perceive the…
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani. The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1989), pp. 20-55.
The Monk's "de casibus" tragedy poses a problem for the modern reader with an idea of tragedy that involves fallibility, sin, and error. Chaucer himself holds a more complex idea of tragedy than does the Monk. Chaucer's version differs from Dante's…
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani, ed. The European Tragedy of Troilus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 1-19.
In the earliest Troilus myths, Troilus is "not primarily a character but a 'function'": his murder early in the Trojan War is an "omen" of Troy's impending fall. In later works, Troilus's character is more fully developed, and his death--late in…
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani, ed. The European Tragedy of Troilus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 281-305.
Summarizes the treatment and evolution of the Troilus myth from antiquity to the modern age, focusing on plot, the ending, and themes of love and death.
Thirteen essays on the development of the Troilus story from antiquity to the modern age, with emphasis on Chaucer and Shakespeare. For eleven essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for The European Tragedy of Troilus under Alternative Title.
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani. The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 56-74.
Discusses links among eros, melancholia, and acedia as well as the tragic psychological dilemma of love in Petrarchan sonnets, Dante, and TC, especially in Chaucer's use of the Petrarchan sonnet "S'amor non e." The "oxymoronic essence" of TC allows…
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Chaucer Companion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 39-57.
Literature is both source and subject matter for Chaucer. In BD, PF, and HF, he transforms source material ("old books") into "new" Chaucerian texts with their own structures and themes.
HF, a turning point in Chaucer's career and in English literary culture, reflects attitudes toward fame and glory from Homer to the Scholastics to writers of the Italian "trecento." The poem deals with issues of fame, poetry, and linguistic theory…
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani, ed. Chaucer and the Italian Trecento (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 185-99.
Examines Chaucer's style, iconography, and adaptations from the "Teseida" in HF, Anel, TC, KnT, LGW, and FranT. Chaucer's method is metonymic; Boccaccio's is metaphorical.
Boitani, Piero.
Piero Boitani, ed. Chaucer and the Italian Trecento (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 115-39.
Dante and Chaucer shared a common knowledge in the classics, medieval philosophy, and science. For HF, Chaucer drew on the "Purgatorio" and the "Paradiso" more than on the "Inferno." TC is Chaucer's equivalent of the "Divine Comedy" and the…
In HF, concerned with the nature of poetry, Chaucer reflects fourteenth-century culture, reveals his debts to Dante and Boccaccio (Lollius), and deals with literature.
A detailed, tabulated comparison of tree-lists in Chaucer (Rom 1379-86, PF 176-82, KnT 2063-65) with those in his sources shows Chaucer becoming more familiar with a technical vocabulary, and more willing to adapt and augment his immediate sources…
