Date of Award
Winter 12-14-2018
Document Type
Honors Project
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English, Linguistics, and Communication
Department Chair or Program Director
Richards, Gary
First Advisor
Kennedy, Teresa
Major or Concentration
English
Abstract
An author’s purpose in translating a work was to shape the literary piece into a framework that would best connect with his intended audience. This essay focuses on the moral and characterization changes within the Griselda tale throughout medieval translations. Giovanni Boccaccio wrote The Decameron X, 10 highlighting the instability of his Italian vernacular in order to undermine authorial intentionality, thereby presenting his work as a matter of interpretation. Francesco Petrarch wrote the Tale of Griselda in Latin to maintain his reputation as a public intellectual with the elite and embedded a religious moral within the tale. Finally, Geoffrey Chaucer created “The Clerk’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales using Middle English vernacular to critique Petrarch and educate his own culture on the value of questioning the authority of literature. I argue that these translations successfully demonstrate that in order to transition a story from one culture into another, authors embrace a rejection of form.
Recommended Citation
Houchins, Christine, "Writing for an Audience: The Griselda Translations" (2018). Student Research Submissions. 280.
https://scholar.umw.edu/student_research/280