Sources

Question 1

Man of Law’s

Answer 1

Nicholas Trivet’s “Les Chronicles”; also appears in John Gower’s “Confessio Amantis”; also belongs to tradition of EXILED QUEENS; the Breton Lai “Èmare”

Question 2

Wife of Bath’s Prologue

Answer 2

Long monologue of La Vieille in the “Roman de la rose”; long tradition of bawdy older women; St. Jerome’s “Treatise adversus Joviniamum”; Theophrastus’ “Golden Book of Marriage’

Question 3

Wife of Bath’s Tale

Answer 3

Widespread theme of “loathly lady”; John Gower’s “Tale of Florent” is very similar- shared source?; Ovid’s TALE OF MIDAS; Dante’s “Convivio”

Question 4

Friar’s

Answer 4

Based on widespread story of the damnation of an unpopular official; Caesarius of Heisterbach’s “Dialogue on Miracles”; widespread motif of the “heartfelt curse”

Question 5

Summoner’s

Answer 5

No known exact literary sources

Question 6

What can the joke in the Prologue of the Summoner’s be compared to?

Answer 6

The Friars in Heaven- this is a blasphemous perversion of a story popular among friars at the time

Question 7

Clerk’s

Answer 7

Petrarch’s adaptation of the last tale in Boccaccio’s “Decameron” & on a French version of Petrarch’s work; a folk tale of the Cupid and Psyche type, first told by Apuleius

Question 8

Merchant’s

Answer 8

No known exact literary sources- but the ‘Pear Tree’ story is a widely known tale that could have come to Chaucer in many forms

Question 9

What does The Merchant’s quote almost as much as The Wife of Bath’s Prologue?

Answer 9

St. Jerome’s “Adversus Joviniamum’

Question 10

What are the similarities between The Merchant’s and Le Roman de la Rose?

Answer 10

Merchant’s account of his own unhappy marriage and the discussion of marriage in the latter

Question 11

What is often compared to The Merchant’s, although they don’t actually have that much in common?

Answer 11

“A Rich Man and his Wife” from an early Italian collection, the Novellino; Boccaccio’s more elaborate version of this in the “Decameron”

Question 12

Squire’s

Answer 12

No known exact literary sources- but Chaucer apparently drew on contemporary travel literature

Question 13

What is the episode of the falcon and the tercelet in The Squire’s Tale similar to?

Answer 13

Part of “Anelida and Arcite”, an early work of Chaucer’s

Question 14

Franklin’s

Answer 14

Boccaccio’s “FILOCOLO” and “DECAMERON” (w “DECAMERON”, they shared a common French source); Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “Histories of the Kings of Britain”; St. Jerome’s “Adversus Joviniamum”; an exemplum told by the “Goodman of Paris”; Book of the Knight of LaTour Landry

Question 15

Which of the other tales does The Franklin’s draw on?

Answer 15

Merchant’s

Question 16

Physician’s

Answer 16

Roman history of TITUS LIVIUS; Gower’s “Confessio Amantis”; Le Roman de la Rose; biblical story of JEPHTHA

Question 17

Pardoner’s

Answer 17

Le Roman de la Rose- the confession of Fals-Semblant; Boccaccio’s “Decameron”; two Italian novelle; tale of the three rioters is widespread in world literature

Question 18

Shipman’s

Answer 18

A similar story can be found in Boccaccio’s “Decameron”, but it’s a retelling of a common folk tale: ‘The Lover’s Gift Regained’

Question 19

Prioress’s

Answer 19

Popular story at time, surviving in a number of versions

Question 20

Sir Thopas

Answer 20

Hardly a line is without its parallel in surviving romances- but no direct source

Question 21

The Tale of Melibee

Answer 21

Renaud de Louens French translation (“Livre de Melibée et de Dame Prudence”) of Albertanus of Brescia’s “Liber consolationi et consilii”; some of the same authorities cited in Wife of Bath’s Prologue

Question 22

Monk’s

Answer 22

Chaucer’s subtitle refers to Boccaccio’s “De casibus virorum illustrium”; Boccaccio’s “De claris mulieribus”; LE ROMAN DE LA ROSE; Bible; Dante; Latin histories; general hearsay

Question 23

Nun’s Priest’s

Answer 23

“Del cok e del gupil” (“The Cock and the Fox”) by Marie de France; Roman de Renart

Question 24

Second Nun’s

Answer 24

“Golden Legend (Legenda aurea)” of Jacob of Genoa/Jacobus de Voraigne, though he also knew some other Latin versions of THE LIFE; Dante’s “Divine Comedy”

Question 25

Canon’s Yeoman’s

Answer 25

No known exact literary sources

Question 26

Manciple’s

Answer 26

Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”, possibly as it appears in “Ovide moralisé”, with some hints of Gower’s “Confessio Amantis” and Machaut’s “Livre de Voir Dit”; Chaucer also knew the version of the tale which appeared in the popular Book of the Seven Sages of Rome

Question 27

Parson’s

Answer 27

A treatise on penance by Raymond of Pennaforte; a treatise on the Deadly Sins by William Peraldus; anonymous “Summa virtutem et remedie anime” for the ‘remedies’; Gower’s ‘Confessio Amantis’ POSSIBLY

Question 28

Knight’s

Answer 28

Boccaccio’ “Teseida”- but greatly edited; Boethius’s “Consolation of Philosophy”; Statius’s “Thebaid”

Question 29

Miller’s

Answer 29

It embodies 2 widespread motifs: “The Misdirected Kiss” and the “Second Flood”

Question 30

What does Chaucer parody in The Miller’s?

Answer 30

Courtly love so often found in the fabliaux; the now old-fashioned diction of earlier English attempts at the courtly style, such as the HARLEY LYRICS

Question 31

Reeve’s

Answer 31

Probably based directly on a French fabliau, since 2 surviving fabliaux, both differing versions of the same story, offer a number of close parallels to Chaucer’s work; Boccaccio’s “Decameron”; “cradle-trick” tale

Question 32

Cook’s

Answer 32

No known exact literary sources

Question 33

Which sophisticated French poets influenced THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS?

Answer 33

Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun (authors of the Roman de la Rose); Froissart; Machaut

Question 34

Who does Chaucer borrow many lines from for THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS, as well as the form of his elegy?

Answer 34

Machaut

Question 35

Which of Guillaume de Machaut’s “dits” has a very similar plot to THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS?

Answer 35

The “Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne”

Question 36

What is the companion poem to the “Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne” called?

Answer 36

The “Jugement dou Roy de Navarre”

Question 37

What are the differences between Machaut’s pair of poems?

Answer 37

The “Jugement dou Roy de Navarre” gives judgement in favour of a woman; it also sets the ideals of FIN’AMOR against a backdrop of tragedy, describing the horrors of the outbreak of the Black Death (1349)

Question 38

What makes it unlikely that the narrator-persona in THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS is autobiographical?

Answer 38

Comic touches of exaggeration or incompetence that seem so individual can be found in Machaut

Question 39

What sources impact on THE HOUSE OF FAME that don’t on THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS?

Answer 39

Beginning of the Italian influence on Chaucer’s poetry- Dante and Boccaccio

Question 40

The House of Fame

Answer 40

Virgil and Ovid; other classical and medieval Latin authors; the Bible; Boethius; French love poets; Dante

Question 41

The Parliament of Fowls

Answer 41

Boccaccio’s TESEIDA