Realism in the Decameron & the Canterbury
Tales
The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales are two of the most important literary works
produced by the Medieval World. They represented a significant departure from
the usual literary style. A vernacular style, written in the language of the
common people, provided a sense of immediacy and realism to the works. This
sudden break from the norm is not without cause. It reflected a new,
increasingly realistic style that was making its way throughout all of art. The
cause of this sudden swerve in style? The Black Death.
The
Black Death, named after the black and pussy buboes that spread all over its
victims’ bodies, first swept over Europe between 1347 and 1250,
killing a third to half of the population of the entire continent of Europe. Giovanni Boccaccio, a survivor and firsthand witness to the horrors of
the Death, described people’s reactions to the Plague, as we can read in Decameron. Bands of the pious would separate themselves from society to
live together in houses in which none had been infected, separating themselves
from the rest of the world and eating and drinking only moderately. Others
adopted the opposite attitude and erupted into anarchic riotous carousing. All,
however, avoided the dead as much as possible, forgoing usual morning services
to distance themselves from the corpses of the deceased. Death,
however, came relentlessly, striking down people of all classes equally. This
tragic plague left people’s faiths shaken heavily. They turned from the idealistic to the more
realistic in their lives as well as in their art and fiction.
This
shift to realism and questioning of faith is reflected in a
ribald tale from Boccaccio’s Decameron,
which shows the exploits of a monk, fearing being captured with a girl in his
cell, tricking his abbot into breaking his vow of clerical celibacy with the
girl. This story illustrates one of a multitude of styles found in
the Decameron, which is a collection
of one hundred stories told by a diverse group of storytellers to each other
while locked up in the countryside together to escape the Black Death.
Another
collection of stories from around the same time and written in the same style
is the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey
Chaucer, which is modeled after the Decameron.
Chaucer, who spoke French natively, decided to write his Tales in the
vernacular tongue of Middle English, the language of the common people. Writing in a language that the everyman spoke showed, once again, the
shift toward greater realism in art and fiction. In the Canterbury Tales, the diverse group of people, instead of trying to
escape the Plague together like those in the Decameron are, is embarking on a pilgrimage together. Chaucer, like
Boccaccio, also displays a multitude of styles in his Tales, as he deftly illustrates each of the pilgrims traveling the
path to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket in Canterbury.
In
the sections of the Canterbury Tales
he completed before his death, Chaucer showed remarkable skill with words, not
only telling the tales but, in the telling, illustrating the personalities of
those who are narrating the stories within the context of the Tales. This focus on the characters
within the Tales made them come off
as real people, enhancing the aspect of realism. Chaucer’s focus on not only
the tales being told but the people telling them illustrated the wide diversity
of people and lifestyles you could expect to see going on a pilgrimage.
Pilgrimage
was a rite of passage of sorts. On a pilgrimage, a voyage was undergone, and
the “pilgrim” who went through it was changed forever by their experiences and
emotions, as reflected in the Canterbury
Tales. As how proximity to death increased a person’s chances of dying
during the Black Death, proximity to holy objects or places increased a person’s
likelihood of salvation on a pilgrimage. The pilgrimage itself, the long and arduous
voyage along the well-traveled routes to the holy site, was itself an act of penance. Getting away from the dirty streets of their overcrowding cities,
full those potentially infected by the Plague, certainly and almost
miraculously helped out the pilgrims’ health, causing pilgrimages to become
increasingly popular. Entire bands of people, from all social classes and walks
of life, went on pilgrimages together, though they would have no reason even to
speak to each other under normal circumstances.
We read of one
such pilgrim in reading 13.7, taken from the Canterbury Tales. The Wife of Bath, as she is known because of how “five
men in turn had taken her to wife,” is painted in sharp brushstrokes.
Swarthy and well-versed in manners of
love, she comes in “easily on her ambling horse.” She wears many fabrics and a
wide-brimmed hat. This is not her first pilgrimage, either: she is described as
traveling from France to Rome, to Jerusalem on no less than three occasions.
She is a living, breathing character.
Another aspect of
realism revealed here as well as in the Decameron
is their portrayal of medieval attitudes to women. We can see them here
evolving in social prominence, and a character as major as the Wife of Bath can
attest to that. Nevertheless, we still see them as being somewhat of second
citizens to men. For example, probably the only reason the Wife of Bath was rich
enough to afford all her trips and expensive fabrics was because of all her
husbands. In the reading from the Decameron,
the girl plays little more than a prop.
We can see, through
these examples, how realism came to the forefront of literature during the
middle ages, reflecting a shift in public attitudes. After the Black Death,
there were just some realities it was impossible to ignore, so they became increasingly
addressed in the popular literature of the day. Reality, as unpleasant as it could
be sometimes, was worth imitating, even in fiction. After what Europe had
experienced, it would accept nothing less.
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