"Chaucer- Boccaccio"

Chaucer and Boccaccio:

Geoffrey Chaucer, who, by 1387, had already composed his works undergoing the French and Italian influence. His intention was to give the English people a collection of tales which would offer them a " true mirror" of real England.

The Chaucer's scheme was probably inspired by Boccaccio's Decameron, and that he had really met Boccaccio, but there is no clear evidence of this fact.

The pilgrims of Chaucer's stories deeply different from Boccaccio's young people ( 7 women and 3 men), all belonging to the refined bourgeoisie, who decide to leave Florence, stricken by terrible plague of 1348, to retire to a rich countryside villa. They stay here 14 days; every day a " King" or a "Queen" is chosen, and the member elected will decide how they will spend the day in leisurey walks, conversations. The title Decameron ( deca= 10 and emerai = days) refers to the ten days devoted to storytelling, one story a day for each member of the gay company, for a total of 100 stories.

In the Canterbury Tales the pilgrims represent almost all the social classes of the time: ( Nobles, clergy, peasants) and a rising merchant class as the Wife of Bath or the Doctor.

Each pilgrim was to tell 2 stories for a total of 120. But only 24 tales were completed. Chaucer did not live long enough to complete his project. In the Canterbury Tales the storytellers are the target of the poet's comic satire.

In the Boccaccio's Decameron there is no individual detailed. Boccaccio exalts the virtue of man, his possibility to guide his existence and to accept the consequences of his actions. Boccaccio was a humanist and he gives an example of the vernacular literatures of the 15 (th) century nd this was also the spirit that informed Chaucer.

CHAUCER/BOCCACCIO:

(Difference)

• Pilgimage - The Black Death ( plague)
• Strongly individualized pilgrims - refined bourgeoisie
•  3o people including Chaucer- 10 people ( 7 women and  boys)
• 3 different orders- same social class ( bougeoisie)
• 120 tales - 100 tales
• 24 complete- 100 complete
• Chaucer descries the pilgrims with extreme vividness, giving him/her an individual personality- no individual description.
• Incomplete- Complete.