Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy

Description: Reads Chaucer's works (especially CT) as his responses to and imaginings of the politics of his age, politics he experienced at home, in his journeys to Italy, and in his readings of Italian literature--especially that of Petrarch and Boccaccio but also that of Dante and Albertano of Brescia.; The "compagnye" of GP represents the "associational ideology" of early Florentine humanism, while the despotism of KnT reflects the absolutist tyranny of Visconti Lombardy, the seedbed of later patronizing humanism.; Aligning Boccaccio with associational forms and Petrarch with despotic ones, Wallace shows how Chaucer responds to his predecessors as he depicts feminine or wifely eloquence as desirable in politics, especially in Mel and LGWP (F version) and, obversely, in ManT. Chaucer's fabliaux present tensions between the city and the country, while MLT explores mercantilism. ClT and MerT examine humanism vs. tyranny; MkT depicts the fate of despotism.; Wallace provides much new historical context for the works of Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Chaucer and argues that Chaucer adumbrates Shakespeare's humanism, although in a form more feminist and communal and less despotic.

Chaucer Subjects: Background and General Criticism.; Canterbury Tales--General.; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.