Wings: A comparative study of Franciscan characteristics in Boccaccio's "Decameron", Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and Marguerite de Navarre's "Heptameron".
Item
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Title
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Wings: A comparative study of Franciscan characteristics in Boccaccio's "Decameron", Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and Marguerite de Navarre's "Heptameron".
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Identifier
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AAI9986384
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identifier
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9986384
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Creator
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Treanor, Lucia.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Fred J. Nichols
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Date
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2000
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | Literature, Medieval | Literature, Romance | Literature, English
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Abstract
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This study examines the conversion of the fourfold exegetical structure from its traditional hermeneutic role in the exposition of Sacred Scripture to a new compositional construct for the crafting of secular literature in the late Middle Ages. It suggests the radical pun, evident in the works of Bonaventure of Bagnoreggio, as the factor that effects access to the various levels of the secular exegetical construct. It traces the development of the construct in the works of Franciscans following Bonaventure, noting especially the emergence of an oppositional fictive level.;Chapter One locates the ground of the literal and the oppositional in the poet Francis of Assisi, and identifies Bonaventure as an aesthetic innovator. It gives the characteristics and history of the exegetical structure, properly called the modi, and examines the Itinerarium Mentis in Deum as the archetypal application of the exegetical "wings" of Hugh of Saint Victor to the non-Seriptural vision of Francis and the Seraph at LaVerna.;Chapter Two describes Dante's use of the modi and radical centering in Epistle XIII to Can Grande della Scala, and notes Nicolas de Lira's use of "the double literal" in the Prologus Secundus of the Glossa Ordinaria in a way similar to the fluid literal of Rabbi Salomon (Rashi).;Chapter Three argues that Boccaccio centers the Decameron novella of Gianni and Restituta, an allegory of Francis and Lady Poverty, and crafts a complex modi construct with a fictive exterior in the novella of Frate Cipolla, a reverse allegory of Francis. It notices a continuation of that construct in the novella of Cepparello da Prato and the Confessor.;Chapter Four identifies the modi in the Monk's Tale of the Canterbury Tales, emphasizing Chaucer's extensive use of the pun, his radical centering and his symmetry. Chapter Five argues that Marguerite de Navarre exhibits an extraordinary facility for complex exegetical structuring in the Heptameron, where she follows Boccaccio's pattern: an allegory of Francis and Lady Poverty (The Gentleman and Poline), a complex modi construct with a fictive exterior (The Virgin of Cherves), and a continuation of the virgin into the novella of The Gentleman of Perigord and his Wife.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
