Irony in Boccaccio's Decameron and in Chaucer's Clerk's Tale

Author / Editor
Pelen, Marc M.

Title
Irony in Boccaccio's Decameron and in Chaucer's Clerk's Tale

Published
Forum for Modern Language Studies 27 (1991): 1-22.

Description
Just as the themes of liberality and magnificence are treated ironically in Decameron 10, particularly in the tale of Griselda (10.10), so ClT is as "poetically and morally suspect" as are WBT and FranT. Both poets use multiple narrators and traditional material (including Scripture) to expose "contradictory or competing half-truths," forcing the reader to think critically.

Chaucer Subjects
Clerk and His Tale.
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.