Chaucer, just near the name of one of Boccaccio’s
characters. Who is he? Why has he been quoted? What has he got in common with
Tofano’s well, which, strangely enough, is just in front of Petrarch’s
House?
You might be quite surprised to find here the name of
an English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer, just near the name of one of Boccaccio’s
characters. Who is he? Why has he been quoted? What has he got in common with
Tofano’s well, which, strangely enough, is just in front of Petrarch’s
House?
There is certainly no direct connection, in fact he neither visited the town nor wrote about this well, but strangely enough there are some links.
First of all, we must say they all lived in the XIVth century. In fact during this century Italian culture was having great influence abroad above all in England thanks to the works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio.
In those times the English writers
were still writing either in French, the language used at Court, or in Latin,
the language of the Church and thus of the educated. The English language was
only used by common people and consequently was rather poor. None until Chaucer
had dared use it in poetry. He had been a page at the Court of King Edward III
for some time, he decided to risk his whole literary fortune on , the King’s
English, however poor it was. He travelled through Europe
and was sent twice to
Italy on diplomatic missions. It was on these occasions that he came into
contact with Italian poetry. He immediately appreciated the genius of the great
Italians, Dante, Petrarch and Bocaccio and probably even met Petrarch at Padua.
So here is the link! But Petrarch was too near to the ancients and his idealism
was too far from a nature as simple as Chaucer’s. In fact he only borrowed the
story of Griselda from him, a Latin translation of the last of Boccaccio’s
tales. Boccaccio was, in fact, the Italian to have most influence on Chaucer as
he was fully conscious of the difference between him and Dante, but he never
mentioned him. Boccaccio’s influence , is undeniable in a number of tales and
above all in his ‘Canterbury Tales’.
He has his tales told by a number of
pilgrims going to visit the tomb of
St. Thomas a Beckett in Canterbury
Cathedral. There are twenty-four tales and a prologue, which presents a full
picture of XIIth century England, it’s the best and liveliest one that we
possess; and his pilgrims include representatives of the petty nobility, of the
lower minister of religion, of the idle classes, and even of the working
classes, Boccaccio’s characters belonged to the same social class as himself.
Moreover, while Boccaccio tells all the stories in his own elaborate style,
Chaucer took care that each pilgrim should tell his or her story in accordance
with the cultural level, social class and character. For example, the Wife of
Bath’s language is as different from the Clerk of Oxford’s, as the language
of an illiterate Florentine could be from Boccaccio’s or Petrarch’s.
In conclusion which are the tales that have most in common between the two masterpieces?
One is the ‘Clerk’s Tale’, dealing with the ‘Story of Grisilde’, the patient wife, told by Boccaccio as the very last of the ‘Decameron’, where he even made the clerk say he had learned the story from Petrarch.
Another one was ‘The Story of Constance’ which was to become ‘The Man of Law’s Tale’ in the ‘Canterbury Tales’.
Please click here, if you want to read what The Story of Constance is about.
Please click here, if you want to read what the tale of the Man of the Law is about.