The Clerk's Tale
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The Clerk's Tale
"The Clerk's Tale" is the first tale of Group E (Fragment IV) in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales''. It is preceded by The Summoner's Tale and followed by The Merchant's Tale. The Clerk of Oxenford (modern Oxford) is a student of what would nowadays be considered philosophy or theology. He tells the tale of Griselda, a young woman whose husband tests her loyalty in a series of cruel torments that recall the biblical Book of Job. Plot The Clerk's tale is about a marquis of Saluzzo in Piedmont in Italy named Walter, a bachelor who is asked by his subjects to marry to provide an heir. He assents and decides he will marry a peasant, named Griselda. Griselda is a poor girl, used to a life of pain and labour, who promises to honour Walter's wishes in all things. After Griselda has borne him a daughter, Walter decides to test her loyalty. He sends an officer to take the baby, pretending it will be killed, but actually conveying it in secret to Bologna. Griselda, because of ...
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Chaucer Coming In Contact With Petrarch Or Boccaccio
Contact between Geoffrey Chaucer and the Italian humanists Petrarch or Boccaccio has been proposed by scholars for centuries.Thomas Warton, ''The history of English poetry, from the close of the eleventh to the commencement of the eighteenth century'' (first published London: J. Dodsley, etc.; Oxford: Fletcher, 1774–81) and William Hazlitt, ''Lectures on the English poets: delivered at the Surrey Institution'' (first published London: Taylor and Hessey, 1818): both extracted in * * * * * , p. 190 * , p. 56 * , p. 42 ''...Speght writing in 1598...'' THE GEOFFREY CHAUCER PAGE – Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375)/ref> More recent scholarship tends to discount these earlier speculations because of lack of evidence. As Leonard Koff remarks, the story of their meeting is "a 'tydying' worthy of Chaucer himself". One of the reasons for the belief that Chaucer came in contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio is because of Chaucer's many trips to mainland Europe from England. Chaucer ha ...
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Studies In The Age Of Chaucer
Study or studies may refer to: General * Education **Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Observational study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * Study (art), a drawing or series of drawings done in preparation for a finished piece * ''Study'' (film), a 2012 film by Paolo Benetazzo * ''Study'' (Flandrin), an 1835/36 painting by Hippolyte Flandrin * Study (room), a room in a home used as an office or library * ''Study'' (soundtrack), a soundtrack album from the 2012 film * The Study, a private all-girls school in Westmount, Quebec, Canada * ''Studies'' (journal), published by the Jesuits in Ireland * Eduard Study (1862–1930), German mathematician * Facebook Study, a market research app See also * Étude, a short musical composition * * * * Studie Studie is a Japanese tuning company of BMW and a Super GT team which participates in GT300 class. Since 2018 the team also participates in the GT World Challenge A ...
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Anne Middleton
Anne Middleton (July 18, 1940 – November 23, 2016) was an American medievalist, and the Florence Green Bixby Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Middleton specialized in the study of Chaucer, Langland, and Gower. In 1966, she completed her PhD at Harvard University under the supervision of Morton W. Bloomfield, writing a dissertation on the prose style of Ælfric’s lives of St. Martin. A firm "believ rin public universities as public goods", known for "cheerful contempt of the private schools and their ways", she spent the bulk of her career in public education, working first in the Detroit school system, then the University of Michigan, and finally at Berkeley, where she taught until her retirement. Middleton was known as "a titanic figure in Middle English literary studies". Her work on Chaucer, especially "The Clerk's Tale", is praised by scholars for its contribution to the understanding of Chaucer and Chaucer's audience. Some of her essays ...
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Allegory
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughout history in all forms of art to illustrate or convey complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers, or listeners. Writers and speakers typically use allegories to convey (semi-)hidden or complex meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey. Many allegories use personification of abstract concepts. Etymology First attested in English in 1382, the word ''allegory'' comes from Latin ''allegoria'', the latinisation of the Greek ἀλληγορία (''allegoría''), "veiled language, figurative", which in turn comes from both ἄλλος (''allos''), "another, different" ...
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Prologue
A prologue or prolog (from Greek πρόλογος ''prólogos'', from πρό ''pró'', "before" and λόγος ''lógos'', "word") is an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Ancient Greek ''prólogos'' included the modern meaning of ''prologue'', but was of wider significance, more like the meaning of preface. The importance, therefore, of the prologue in Greek drama was very great; it sometimes almost took the place of a romance, to which, or to an episode in which, the play itself succeeded. Latin On the Latin stage the prologue was often more elaborate than it was in Athens, and in the careful composition of the poems which Plautus prefixes to his plays we see what importance he gave to this portion of the entertainment; sometimes, as in the preface to the ''Rudens'', Plautus rises to the height of his genius in his adroit and romantic prolo ...
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Philippe De Mézières
Philippe de Mézières (c. 1327 – May 29, 1405), a French soldier and author, was born at the chateau of Mézières in Picardy. Period of soldiering (1344–1358) Philippe belonged to the poorer nobility. At first, he served under Luchino Visconti in Lombardy but within a year he entered the service of the husband of Joanna I of Naples, Andrew, Duke of Calabria, who was the son of the King Charles I of Hungary. Andrew was assassinated very soon in September 1345. In the autumn of that year, Philippe set out for the East in the French army. After the Battle of Smyrna in 1346 he was made a knight, and when the French army was disbanded, he made his way to Jerusalem. He realized the advantage which the discipline of the Saracens gave them over the disorderly armies of the West, and conceived the idea of a new order of knighthood, but his efforts proved fruitless. The first sketch of the order was drawn up by him in his ''Nova religio passionis'' (1367–1368; revised and enlarge ...
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Exemplum
An exemplum (Latin for "example", pl. exempla, ''exempli gratia'' = "for example", abbr.: ''e.g.'') is a moral anecdote, brief or extended, real or fictitious, used to illustrate a point. The word is also used to express an action performed by another and used as an example or model. Exemplary literature This genre sprang from the above, in classical, medieval and Renaissance literature, consisting of lives of famous figures, and using these (by emphasizing good or bad character traits) to make a moral point. Collections of Exempla helped medieval preachers to adorn their sermons, to emphasize moral conclusions or illustrate a point of doctrine. The subject matter could be taken from fables, folktales, legends, real history, or natural history. Jacques de Vitry's book of exempla, c. 1200, Nicholas Bozon's ''Les contes moralisés'' (after 1320), and Odo of Cheriton's ''Parabolae'' (after 1225) were famous medieval collections aimed particularly at preachers. Geoffrey Chaucer's '' ...
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Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Italian Renaissance and the founding of Renaissance humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch was later endorsed as a model for Italian style by the Accademia della Crusca. Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being the first to develop the concept of the " Dark Ages".Renaissance or Prenaissan ...
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Literary Topos
In classical Greek rhetoric, topos, ''pl.'' topoi, (from grc, τόπος "place", elliptical for grc, τόπος κοινός ''tópos koinós'', 'common place'), in Latin ''locus'' (from ''locus communis''), refers to a method for developing arguments. (See ''topoi'' in classical rhetoric.) Meaning and history Topos is translated variously as "topic", "themes", "line of argument", or "commonplace". Ernst Robert Curtius studied topoi as "commonplaces", themes common to orators and writers who re-worked them according to occasion, e.g., in classical antiquity the observation that "all must die" was a topos in consolatory oratory, for in facing death the knowledge that death comes even to great men brings comfort. Curtius also discussed the topoi in the invocation of nature (sky, seas, animals, etc.) for various rhetorical purposes, such as witnessing to an oath, rejoicing or praising God, or mourning with the speaker.Curtius, ''European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages'', 92 ...
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Decameron
''The Decameron'' (; it, label=Italian, Decameron or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old it, Prencipe Galeotto, links=no ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dante Alighieri's ''Comedy'' "''Divine''"), is a collection of short stories by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men; they shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived of the ''Decameron'' after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in ''The Decameron'' range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's ''Canterbury Ta ...
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Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars (including Vittore Branca) define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism. His most notable works are ''The Decameron'', a collection of short stories which in the following centuries was a determining element for the Italian literary tradition, especially after Pietro Bembo elevated the Boccaccian style to a model of Italian prose in the sixteenth century, and ''On Famous Women''. He wrot ...
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