Chaucer and the Tradition of the Roman Antique

by Barbara Nolan

• ISBN13: 9780521051002
• ISBN10: 0521051002
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-03-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is a detailed investigation of Chaucers poetics in Troilus and Criseyde and the Knights Tale in relation to an important continental narrative tradition. It is the first such wide-ranging study since Charles Muscatines seminal Chaucer and the French Tradition and the first book to argue in detail that Chaucers poems, Boccaccios Filostrato and Teseida and the twelfth-century French romans antiques participate in a distinct formal tradition within the protean field of medieval romance. By close examination of the formal and ethical designs of each poem, Barbara Nolan explores both the compositional practices shared by all of the poets she discusses, and their calculated differences from each other. Her analysis culminates in a full examination of Chaucers richly original response to the continental verse narratives from which he borrowed. No other study offers so full and careful a delineation of the compositional features that distinguish the roman antique from other forms of romance in the Middle Ages.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

List of abbreviations

Introduction

Benot de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie and the compositional practices of the roman antique

Plaits, debates, and judgments in the Roman de ThTbes, the Roman de Troie and the Roman d'Eneas

The poetics of fine amor in the French romans antiques

From history into fiction: Boccaccio's Filostrato and the question of foolish love

Boccaccio's Teseida and the triumph of Aristotelian virtue

Saving the poetry: authors, translators, texts, and readers in Chaucer's Book of Troilus and Criseyde

The consolation of Stoic virtue: Chaucer's Knight's Tale and the tradition of the roman antique

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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