Chaucer’s Boccaccio: Sources of Troilus and The Knight’s and Franklin’s Tales ed. by N. R. Havely (review)

REVIEWS claiming that "it is inherently improbable that the city merchant would aspire to cultural models essentially different from those of his super­ iors"; yet a fair number of the medieval English romances seem to me to represent the aspiration rather than the achievement, while the cynicism of a text such as Thomas Chestre'sSir Laun/al may well draw attention to the gap between the two. Further, the fifteenth century, which we are accustomed to see, at least south of the Tweed, as a literary desert, embraces the copying of most of the surviving manuscripts of Piers Plowman and of The Canterbury Tales; the compilation of a number of manuscript miscellanies, ofwhich the Cambridge manuscript numbered Ff2.38 is most notable; the most important revisions of the York and Wakefield mystery cycles, and the compilation and at least partial composition of the Ludus Coventriae. By no stretch ofthe imagination could all theactivityinvolvedbe fitted into Dr. Green's categories. As such material is excluded from his brief, he cannot be criticized for not discussing it; but it is claimed, whether by the author or the publisher is not clear, that the study "demonstrates the overwhelming cultural dominance of the aristocracy in this period," and this claim must be modified in the light of the other evidence. NICHOLAS JACOBS Jesus College, Oxford N. R. HAVELY, ed. and trans., Chaucer's Boccaccio: Sources o/Troilus andthe Knight's and Franklin's Tales. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield, 1980. Pp. 225. $31.50. This volume offers a complete translation of Boccaccio's II Filostrato, excerpts from Il Teseida, and excerpts from IlFilocolo. It deliberately does not include works which Chaucer 'might' have known, such as the Decameron and the De Casibus. There are three appendices. The first traces the story ofTroilus and the other central characters from Homer up to Boccaccio; the second and third provide translated excerpts from Benoit de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie and Guido de Columnis' Historia Destructionis Troiae. The Introduction emphasizes the Neapolitan setting for Boccaccio's writings, particularly Angevin court life under King Robert of Sicily (1309-43), but also the influence of classical models, 159 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER and of Dante. Chaucer may have learned Italian from native speakers or from English travellers (both were to be found in the London mercantile community and at court); his first touch with Italy itself came with diplomatic duties in Genoa, Florence, and Milan. Havely also notes the great interest in Boccaccio's early romances and Latin works at the French court. Chaucer might have benefited from that interest, and probably had a French version ofII Filostrato in hand when he wrote the Troilus. But Chaucer must have received II Teseida directly from the Italian and used it in writing his earlier works. Whether or not his copy of the Teseida contained Boccaccio's chiose or glosses to the poem will continue to be disputed. Why Chaucer never mentions Boccaccio's name is a question which has troubled many readers, particularly since he does mention Dante and Petrarch (but not Statius). Chaucer may have been unaware ofauthorship in certain cases, but since he did spend time in Florence, his silence invites further explanation. Havely's suggestion that Chaucer saw Dante and Petrarch reverentially as 'auctors,' but regarded Boccaccio as an equal does not quite resolve the matter, given the enormous literary indebtedness to Boccaccio in The Knight's Tale and the Troilus. Chaucer probably saw Gower as more ofan equal, and ofcourse he mentions him. The translation of the Filostrato is accurate, clear, and serviceable. It will help readers to follow the original, and it will give students who have no Italian access to its contents. The prose ofearlier translations had been strained to repackage poetic lines, but Havely's rendering flows naturally, still giving a sense ofhow complex Boccaccio's syntax can be. And this translation is free of the creaky archaisms of earlier ones. About a quarter of the Teseida has been translated here, along with selected chiose. Most of what has been omitted from the Teseida is epic paraphernalia and introductory sonnets, so that our attention, like Chaucer's, can center on...