Research Catalog

Title

Boccaccio, Chaucer, and stories for an uncertain world : agency in the Decameron and the Canterbury tales / Robert W. Hanning.

Author

Hanning, Robert W.

Publication

• Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2021.
• ©2021

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 359 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

"Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World understands the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales to communicate a radical uncertainty haunting most human endeavors, one that challenges effective knowledge of the future, the past, or the distant present; accurate perception of both complex, equivocal signifying systems, including language, and the intentions hidden rather than revealed by the words and deeds of others; and successful strategy in dealing with the chronic excesses and arbitrariness of power. This comparative study of Decameron novelle and Canterbury pilgrim tales yields the insight that the key to coping with these challenges is pragmatic prudence: rational calculation issuing in an opportunistic, often amoral choice of ingenious deeds and/or eloquent words appropriate (though without guarantee) to mastering a specific crisis, and achieving the goal of agency in the here and now, not salvation in the Hereafter. An initial chapter explores the Aristotelian antecedents, contemporaneous cultural influences, and narrative techniques that intersect to shape the radically uncertain world of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales, while succeeding chapters pair, and compare, stories from both collections that0illustrate the quest for agency-its successes and its failures-through plots often brilliantly adapted from simpler antecedents, as well as eloquence by turns satiric and insightful. This is storytelling that exposes a culture's fears, as well as its aspirations for mastery over the circumstances that challenge its existence; reading these tales should be a labor of love and the goal of this study is to help assure that the reader's labor shall not be lost."--

Series Statement

Oxford studies in medieval literature and culture

Uniform Title

Oxford studies in medieval literature and culture.

Subject

• Boccaccio, Giovanni, 1313-1375
• Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400
• Canterbury tales (Chaucer, Geoffrey)
• Decamerone (Boccaccio, Giovanni)
• Literature, Medieval > History and criticism
• Agent (Philosophy) in literature
• Uncertainty in literature
• Storytelling in literature
• Literature, Medieval

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-245) and index.

Contents

Introduction: Having the world by the tale: a new comparative reading of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales -- Mapping the uncertain world: texts and contexts -- Fortuna, fama, and the challenge to agency -- Can you trust the sign? Uncertainty of signification, comprehension, and perception -- The uncertainty of intention - Power.

Call Number

JFE 22-551

ISBN

• 9780192894755
• 0192894757

OCLC

1246353754

Author

Hanning, Robert W., author.

Title

Boccaccio, Chaucer, and stories for an uncertain world : agency in the Decameron and the Canterbury tales / Robert W. Hanning.

Publisher

Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2021.

Copyright Date

©2021

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Oxford studies in medieval literature and culture

Oxford studies in medieval literature and culture.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-245) and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 22-551