Midieval Literature - Term Paper Example

The given paper will discuss the sources for The Canterbury Tales, specifically The Clerk’s tale, and investigate the differences between the versions of the story provided by different authors. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer represents a great diversity of stories narrated by many people. This diversity brings to conclusion that the sources the author took for this literary creation are very different. Such conclusion in its turn makes us think of the causes Chaucers had for writing some of the stories met in The Canterbury Tales and his reasons for using definite sources.

The most worth-researching connection is the bound between the story called The Clerks Tale and its source. The alterations made by the author of The Clerks Tale to the tale of Griselda show Chaucers wish to make his own deep and profound investigation of the age-old problems connected with marriage by researching the way of thinking of a husband and a wife (Smith, 2008). The first source of the tale defined by Chaucer himself is the work of Petrarch. Some place in the tale seems to be exactly copied from the source.

Chaucer not only reflects the thoughts of Petrarch but even uses his words in some sentences. However, Petrarch can’t be called the main source for The Canterbury Tales. There is another creation that played more important role. It is The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, mainly his story of Griselda that represents the main source for The Clerk’s Tale. Actually, Chaucer himself did not say any word about this source and this is not surprising – not only the clerk’s tale, but many other stories included in The Canterbury Tales have their origin in Boccaccios The Decameron.

The similarity is so obvious that it can be even assumed that Chaucer communicated with Boccaccio, but preferred to conceal this fact (Smith, 2008). Two abovementioned creators are considered to be the sources used by Chaucer for The Clerks Tale. However, the