Editing The Canterbury Tales (section)

==Sources==
[[File:Waterhouse decameron.jpg|thumb|''A Tale from the Decameron'' by [[John William Waterhouse]]]]
No other work prior to Chaucer's is known to have set a collection of tales within the framework of pilgrims on a pilgrimage. It is obvious, however, that Chaucer borrowed portions, sometimes very large portions, of his stories from earlier stories, and that his work was influenced by the general state of the literary world in which he lived. Storytelling was the main entertainment in England at the time, and storytelling contests had been around for hundreds of years. In 14th-century England, the English [[Pui (society)|Pui]] was a group with an appointed leader who would judge the songs of the group. The winner received a crown and, as with the winner of ''The Canterbury Tales'', a free dinner. It was common for pilgrims on a pilgrimage to have a chosen "master of ceremonies" to guide them and organise the journey.<ref>Cooper, p. 10.</ref> [[Harold Bloom]] suggests that the structure is mostly original, but inspired by the "pilgrim" figures of Dante and Virgil in ''[[Divine Comedy|The Divine Comedy]]''.<ref name="Harold Bloom">{{cite news|last=Bloom|first=Harold|title=Road Trip|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Bloom-t.html?_r=0|access-date=9 September 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=11 November 2009}}</ref> New research suggests that the General Prologue, in which the innkeeper and host Harry Bailey introduces each pilgrim, is a pastiche of the historical Harry Bailey's surviving 1381 poll-tax account of Southwark's inhabitants.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sobecki|first1=Sebastian|title=A Southwark Tale: Gower, the 1381 Poll Tax, and Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales''|journal=Speculum|date=2017|volume=92|issue=3|pages=630–60|doi=10.1086/692620|s2cid=159994357|url=https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/44079043/692620.pdf}}</ref>

''The Canterbury Tales'' contains more parallels to the ''[[Decameron]]'', by [[Giovanni Boccaccio]], than any other work. Like the ''Tales'', the ''Decameron'' features a frame tale in which several different narrators tell a series of stories. In the ''Decameron'', the characters have fled to the countryside to escape [[the Black Death]]. It ends with an apology by Boccaccio, much like [[Chaucer's Retraction]] to the ''Tales''. A quarter of the tales in ''The Canterbury Tales'' parallel a tale in the ''Decameron'', although most of them have closer parallels in other stories. Some scholars thus find it unlikely that Chaucer had a copy of the work on hand, surmising instead that he may have merely read the ''Decameron'' at some point.<ref>Cooper, pp. 10–11.</ref> Chaucer may have read the ''Decameron'' during his first diplomatic mission to [[Italy in the Middle Ages|Italy]] in 1372.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} Chaucer used a wide variety of sources, but some, in particular, were used frequently over several tales, among them the Bible, Classical poetry by [[Ovid]], and the works of contemporary Italian writers [[Petrarch]] and [[Dante]]. Chaucer was the first author to use the work of these last two.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} [[Boethius]]' ''[[Consolation of Philosophy]]'' appears in several tales, as do the works of [[John Gower]], a friend of Chaucer's. Chaucer also seems to have borrowed from numerous religious encyclopaedias and liturgical writings, such as [[John Bromyard]]'s ''[[Summa praedicantium]]'', a preacher's handbook, and [[Jerome]]'s ''[[Against Jovinianus|Adversus Jovinianum]]''.<ref>Cooper, pp. 12–16.</ref> Many scholars say there is a good possibility [[Chaucer coming in contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio|Chaucer met Petrarch or Boccaccio]].<ref name="Brewer227">Brewer, p. 227. "Although Chaucer undoubtedly studied the works of these celebrated writers, and particularly of Dante before this fortunate interview; yet it seems likely, that these excursions gave him a new relish for their compositions, and enlarged his knowledge of the Italian fables."</ref><ref name="Brewer277">Brewer, p. 277."...where he became thoroughly inbued with the spirit and excellence of the great Italian poets and prose-writers: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio; and is said to have had a personal contact interview with one of these, Petrarch."</ref><ref name="Hendrickson183-192">Hendrickson, pp. 183–92. Professor G. L. Hendrickson of the University of Chicago gives a detailed analysis as to Chaucer coming in contact with Petrarch.</ref><ref>Rearden, p. 458. "There can be no moral doubt but that Chaucer knew Petrarch personally. They were both in France many times, where they might have met. They were both courtiers. They both had an enthusiasm for scholarship. Whether they met then, or whether Chaucer, when on his visit to Genoa, specially visited the Italian, it does not appear." "...but the only reason that such a visit could not have occurred lies in the fact that Petrarch himself does not record it. Still, on the other hand, would he have mentioned the visit of a man who was the servant of a barbarous monarch, and whose only claim to notice, literary-wise, was his cultivation of an unknown and uncouth dialect that was half bastard French?"</ref><ref>Skeat (1874), p. xxx. "And we know that Petrarch, on his own shewing, was so pleased with the story of Griselda that he learnt it by heart as well as he could, for the express purpose of repeating it to friends, before the idea of turning it into Latin occurred to him. Whence we may conclude that Chaucer and Petrarch met at Padua early in 1373; that Petrarch told Chaucer the story by word of mouth, either in Italian or French; and that Chaucer shortly after obtained a copy of Petrarch's Latin version, which he kept constantly before him whilst making his own translation."</ref>