The Indebtedness of Chaucer's Works to the Italian Works of Boccaccio (a Review and Summary)

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Excerpt from The Indebtedness of Chaucer's Works to the Italian Works of Boccaccio (a Review and Summary): A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of Princeton University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The present work has developed from a dissertation on Chaucer's Indebtedness to Boccaccio in Troilus and Criseyde and the Knight's Tale, which was submitted in April, 1914, to the English Department of Princeton University as the fulfilment of a partial requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The dissertation, never separately published, is now fully incorporated in the present, rather longer, study of the influence of Boccaccio's works over Chaucer's, and herewith makes its first appearance in print, with its earlier crudities, the writer fears, at times all too imperfectly removed. Very early in my investigation of the Chaucer-Boccaccio problem I perceived to my regret that I should have more to do than to review and summarize. I saw that it would be my duty, also, to challenge several of the results of earlier, and very earnest investigation, but, to weigh very critically the results of other's labours, I soon realized was an inevitable function of scholarship, and so reconciled myself to the rôle of quasi-iconoclast. It was, accordingly, very much in the belief that an absolute truth can no more readily be obtained in the field of scholarship than in the field of philosophy, that the present investigation was undertaken. And the work was pursued only in the hope that an approximate form of truth might be obtained, which might prove of value to students of Chaucer problems. Were the riddle in the relations existing between Chaucer and Boccaccio capable of one unquestioned solution, that solution would have been determined long ago, for scholars have long employed their wits upon it, and certainly, if the riddle had been only once and for always propounded and then answered immediately and dogmatically, the solution, however interesting it might have been, would have thrown little light upon the genius of Chaucer. In a word, an immediate solution would have precluded, and still would preclude, its own value. It would aver one of two facts, either that the relations, - whatever they might have been, personal, literary, of friendship or of discipleship, - existing between the two poets were of no real value to Chaucer, or that Chaucer's work, having become too dependent upon those relations, would have no value for us to-day, five centuries after the poet's death. Neither of these facts is admissible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.