Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World: Agency in the Decameron

Description: Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World by Robert W. Hanning A comparative study of Boccaccios Decameron and Chaucers Canterbury Tales that explores the differences and similarities between the worlds that are portrayed by each text, with a focus on the strategies and limits of personal agency, and the significance and social dynamics of story-telling. FORMAT Hardcover CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description 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; andsuccessful 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 pragmaticprudence: 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 theCanterbury Tales, while succeeding chapters pair, and compare, stories from both collections that illustrate the quest for agency-its successes and its failures--through plots often brilliantly adapted from simplerantecedents, as well as eloquence by turns satiric and insightful. This is storytelling that exposes a cultures 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 readers labor shall not be lost. Author Biography Robert W. Hanning is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University. He taught as a Visiting Professor at Yale, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and New York University. He was Kirk Professor of Medieval Literature at Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College and directed the Bread Loaf program at Lincoln College, Oxford on three occasions. Table of Contents Introduction: Having the World by the Tale: A new comparative reading of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales1: Mapping the uncertain world: Texts and contexts2: Fortuna, Fama, and the challenge to agency3: Can you trust the sign? Uncertainty of signification, comprehension, and perception4: The uncertainty of Intention5: PowerBibliography Review Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Stories for an Uncertain World provides an engaging, witty, and useful contribution to the field by illustrating the shared concern of deliberative agency in these most celebrated tale collections. Hannings framework also paves the way for further scholarship on uncertainty and deliberation in other of Boccaccios and Chaucers works, such as the Filostrato and Troilus. * Jessica R. Honey, Renaissance Quarterly * Long Description 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; andsuccessful 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 deedsand/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 thatillustrate 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 cultures fears, as well as its aspirations for mastery over the circumstances that challenge itsexistence; reading these tales should be a labor of love and the goal of this study is to help assure that the readers labor shall not be lost. Feature The first thematic, comparative study of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales that presents a significant new interpretation of both shared and diverse features of the two collectionsFeatures new translations of the Italian text that are carefully crafted for colloquial parity rather than literal equivalenceIdentifies pragmatic prudence as a key component of narrative development in the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales and contextualizes, in characteristics of Late medieval European governance, international commerce, and sacramental Confession, its importance for Boccaccio and Chaucer as well as its departure from classical and Christian understandings of the virtue of prudence Details ISBN0192894757 Author Robert W. Hanning Publisher Oxford University Press Year 2021 ISBN-10 0192894757 ISBN-13 9780192894755 Format Hardcover Edition 1st Imprint Oxford University Press Place of Publication Oxford Country of Publication United Kingdom Pages 384 Publication Date 2021-10-28 UK Release Date 2021-10-28 NZ Release Date 2021-10-28 Subtitle Agency in the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales Edited by Francis L. Pratt Birth 1797 Death 1851 Affiliation STFC Fellow, ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Position STFC Fellow Qualifications Ph.D. Series Oxford Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture DEWEY 853.1 Audience Professional & Vocational AU Release Date 2022-01-05 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:139294380;

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