Medieval Framed Narratives and the Single-Author Collection

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Mediaevalia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Studies Worldwide

Organizer Name

Olivia Holmes

Organizer Affiliation

Binghamton Univ.

Presider Name

Olivia Holmes

Paper Title 1

Class Limits on Heroic Clerkly Misogyny in the Dolopathos

Presenter 1 Name

Randy Schiff

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. at Buffalo

Paper Title 2

A Framed/Unframed Anthology between Novellino and Decameron

Presenter 2 Name

Irene Cappelletti

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. della Svizzera italiana

Paper Title 3

The Decameron: How Important Was the Frame?

Presenter 3 Name

Laurie Shepard

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Boston College

Paper Title 4

Frames of Mind: Boccaccio's Alatiel, Chaucer's Constance, and the Uses of Tales in Tales

Presenter 4 Name

Warren Ginsberg

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Univ. of Oregon

Start Date

11-5-2017 3:30 PM

Session Location

Schneider 1355

Description

The magisterial story-collections of Giovanni Boccaccio and Geoffrey Chaucer were preceded and influenced by earlier framed story-collections of Eastern derivation, such as the Johannes de Alta Silva’s Dolopathos, based on the anonymous Seven Sages of Rome. Another compendium of tales that provided pretexts and plots for Boccaccio and Chaucer was the unframed (and also anonymous) Italian vernacular collection, the Novellino. The papers in this session examine structural or thematic connections between Boccaccio and Chaucer and earlier narrative anthologies known to medieval Europe, especially in terms of exploring the ordering of stories and the construction of the larger macro-text in the context of the historical trend toward the single-author codex.

Olivia Holmes