Comedy in Chaucer and Boccaccio

This book examines the relationship of the comic tales, the so-called fabliaux, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio's Decameron. It suggests that not only did Chaucer and Boccaccio share the same comic literary tradition stretching back into antiquity, but that Chaucer drew on the Italian's work; by putting the tales and the characters side-by-side, it throws new light on Chaucer's inventiveness.