Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World: Agency in the "Decameron" and the "Canterbury Tales."
- Author / Editor
- Hanning, Robert W.
Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World: Agency in the "Decameron" and the "Canterbury Tales."
- Published
- Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
- Physical Description
- xi, 359 pp.
- Series
- Oxford Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture.
- Description
- Close comparative analysis of CT and Boccaccio's "Decameron," arguing that they present "pragmatic prudence" or "expediential calculation" as essential forms of human agency in negotiating limited knowledge, faulty perception, and cultural turmoil. Assesses storytelling as a "constitutive" cultural force in the "Decameron" and as "competitive" social exchange in CT, concentrating on how characters in both collections " 'deal with a chronically uncertain world, and with the formidable forces that create or perpetuate its uncertainty . . . to gain, maintain, or reclaim personal agency'." (original emphasis). Particular attention to KnT, MilPT, RvPT, MLPT, WBPT, ClPT, MerPT, ShT, Mel, and ManT.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Canterbury Tales--General
Sources, Analogues, and Literary
Knight and His Tale
Miller and His Tale
Reeve and His Tale
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Clerk and His Tale
Merchant and His Tale
Shipman and His Tale
Tale of Melibee
Manciple and His Tale