Chaucer, Boccaccio, and the Debate of Love: A Comparative Study of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales

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Oxford University Press, 1999 - 354 pages
The two collections are examined in the light of their literary diversity, their shape as a form of quodlibet debate, their discussion of literature and its autonomy, using the oppositions of utile-diletto and 'sentence'-'solaas', and in the specific way that individual narratives are treated so as to create a labyrinthine web for the reader both to negotiate and to enjoy. This is the fullest attempt yet to demonstrate the weight of evidence linking Chaucer's work to the Decameron and to disprove the stance, take early this century, that Chaucer was not directly indebted to it.
 

Contents

READING THE SIGNS
43
THE LITERARY DEBATE
88
THE AUTONOMY OF FICTION
136
FABLIAUX
176
NOBLE
225
THE THREE GRISELDAS
279
CONCLUSION
313
Index
351
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