Influence of Italian humanism on Chaucer

Contact between Geoffrey Chaucer and the Italian humanists Petrarch or Boccaccio has been proposed by scholars for centuries.[1] More recent scholarship tends to discount these earlier speculations because of lack of evidence. As Leonard Koff remarks, the story of their meeting is "a 'tydying' worthy of Chaucer himself".[2][3][4][5][6]

Petrarch's Arquà house near Padua in 1831 (artist's depiction with a tourist).
Petrarch's Arquà house near Padua where he retired (picture taken 2009).

Chaucer's trips to mainland Europe
The last tale of Boccaccio's Decameron became Petrarch's "De Patientia Griseldis", which later became Chaucer's Clerk's Tale.

There are government records that show Chaucer was absent from England visiting Genoa and Florence from December 1372 until the middle of 1373.[5][7] He went with Sir James de Provan and John de Mari, eminent merchants hired by the king, and some soldiers and servants.[7][8] During this Italian business trip for the king to arrange for a settlement of Genoese merchants these scholars say it is likely that sometime in 1373 Chaucer made contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio.[5][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Milan 1368: The wedding of the Duke of Clarence and Violante Visconti

They believe it plausible that Chaucer not only met Petrarch at this wedding but also Boccaccio.[7][11] This view today, however, is far from universally accepted. William T. Rossiter, in his 2010 book on Chaucer and Petrarch argues that the key evidence supporting a visit to the continent in this year is a warrant permitting Chaucer to pass at Dover, dated 17 July. No destination is given, but even if this does represent a trip to Milan, he would have missed not only the wedding, but also Petrarch, who had returned to Pavia on 3 July.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]

The Clerk's Tale
The Clerk's Tale – story of "Griselda"
Zenobia in Chaucer's Good Women and The Monk's Tale is taken directly from Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris[27]

However, this does not mean necessarily that Chaucer himself met Petrarch.[28][29][30][31] [32][33][34][35][36]

The Legend of Good Women

Chaucer followed the general plan of Boccaccio's work On Famous Women in The Legend of Good Women.[29][35][37][38][39][22][40][41][42][43][44][45]

Alternative viewpoints
Masterpieces with Canterbury Tales

The Knight's Tale uses Boccaccio's Teseida and the Filostrato is the major source of Troilus and Creseyde.

Footnotes
  1. Thomas Warton, The history of English poetry, from the close of the eleventh to the commencement of the eighteenth century (first published London: J. Dodsley, etc.; Oxford: Fletcher, 1774–81) and William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English poets: delivered at the Surrey Institution (first published London: Taylor and Hessey, 1818): both extracted in Brewer 1995, pp. 226–30 (p.227) and 272–83 (p. 277)
  2. Koff 11
  3. anon, The World of Chaucer 2008
  4. Skeat 1910
  5. Skeat 1900, p. 454 (Scholars being Professor Walter William Skeat and Dr. Furnivall)
  6. Coulton 1908, p. 40
  7. Gray 2003, p. 251
  8. Howard 1987, p. 169
  9. Howard 1987, p. 191
  10. Crow, Martin M. et al, Chaucer Life-records.
  11. Thomas Warton, The history of English poetry, from the close of the eleventh to the commencement of the eighteenth century (first published London: J. Dodsley, etc.; Oxford: Fletcher, 1774–81) extracted in Brewer 1995, pp. 226–30 (p.227))
  12. Howard 1987, p. 189
  13. Curry 1869, pp. 157, 158, 159
  14. Warton 1871, p. 296 (footnotes: Froissart was also present.)
  15. Rossiter 2010
  16. Meiklejohn 1887
  17. Skeat 1906
  18. Ames 1900, p. 98
  19. Skeat 1900, pp. 382, 453, 454, 455
  20. Skeat 1894, pp. 454–456
  21. Skeat (1900), p. xvii
  22. Borghesi 1903, p. 20
  23. Boccaccio's Decameron
  24. Florence Nightengale Jones (1910). Boccaccio and his imitators in German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian literature, The Decameron. The University of Chicago Press – via Internet Archive.
  25. Warton 1871, p. 349
  26. anon, American Society for the Extension of University Teaching 1898, p. 82
  27. Skeat (1906), p. 182
  28. Boitani, p. 291
  29. The Chaucer Review, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 163–165 (Fall, 1989), p. 164; Penn State University Press
  30. Liukkonen, Petri. "Petrarch". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 12 March 2010.
  31. Boccaccio
  32. Wallace, Chaucerian Polity (Bishop)
  33. The Monk's Tale – Middle English
  34. The Monk's Tale – Modern English
  35. Howard 1987, p. 195
  36. Gray 2003, p. 375
  37. Skeat (1900), p. xxviii
  38. Gray 2003, p. 58
  39. Skeat (1900), p. xxix
  40. "Boccaccio and Chaucer" by Peter Borghesi, Bologna, 1912
  41. Howard 1987, p. 187
  42. Gray 2003, p. 57
  43. Ames 1900, p. 99
  44. Gray 2003, p. 376
  45. Howard 1987, p. 282

Sources
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