Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Romance and the Orient
- 2 Mercantilism and Faith in the Eastern Mediterranean: Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale, Boccaccio's Decameron 5, 2, and Gower's Tale of Constance
- 3 Two Oriental Queens from Chaucer's Legend of Good Women: Cleopatra and Dido
- 4 Chaucer's Squire's Tale: Content and Structure
- 5 A Question of Incest, the Double, and the Theme of East and West: The Middle English Romance of Floris and Blauncheflur
- 6 Le Bone Florence of Rome and the East
- Conclusion
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Romance and the Orient
- 2 Mercantilism and Faith in the Eastern Mediterranean: Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale, Boccaccio's Decameron 5, 2, and Gower's Tale of Constance
- 3 Two Oriental Queens from Chaucer's Legend of Good Women: Cleopatra and Dido
- 4 Chaucer's Squire's Tale: Content and Structure
- 5 A Question of Incest, the Double, and the Theme of East and West: The Middle English Romance of Floris and Blauncheflur
- 6 Le Bone Florence of Rome and the East
- Conclusion
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
THE appearance of the Orient in medieval English romance – as exotic setting (in the Squire's Tale), as new territory for trade and conversion (in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale and Gower's Tale of Constance), as realm of sensuality (in Chaucer's legends of Dido and Cleopatra and possibly even in Floris and Blauncheflur), and, indeed, as the source and conduit of tales themselves (in Le Bone Florence of Rome and some elements of Chaucer's Squire's Tale) – suggests that contact with strangers can become a powerful motor for change in literature. The very rise of romance as a new genre in medieval France, placed as it is in time after the East-West encounter of the Second Crusade, is itself the most potent example of this. The appearance of the ancient Greek novel is another.
The Question of the Ancient Greek Novel and the Arabs
What part, if any, may have been played by the ancient Greek novel in the development of medieval romance literature remains problematic. Did the earlier affect the latter genre? It is striking that the ancient Greek novel also arose after the West encountered the East. The form appeared in the Hellenistic Period which began with Alexander's conquest of the Orient and ended when the last Hellenistic state – Egypt – was swallowed by the Roman Empire. This new type of prose literature was produced in Greek-speaking countries of the eastern Mediterranean by writers actually not Greek, but North African or Near Eastern – people from such places as Pergamon, Antioch, or Alexandria (Wolff, 2; Hägg, xi).
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Orient in Chaucer and Medieval Romance , pp. 125 - 130Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2003