The Knight's Tale in the context of "The Two Noble Kinsmen"

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⭐ Core Definition: The Knight's Tale

"The Knight's Tale" (Middle English: The Knightes Tale) is the first tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

The Knight is described by Chaucer in the "General Prologue" as the person of highest social standing amongst the pilgrims, though his manners and clothes are unpretentious. We are told that he has taken part in some fifteen crusades in many countries and also fought for one pagan leader against another. Though the list of campaigns is real, his characterization is idealized. Most readers have taken Chaucer's description of him as "a verray, parfit gentil knyght" to be sincere but Terry Jones suggested that this description was ironic, and that Chaucer's readers would have deduced that the Knight was a mercenary. He is accompanied on his pilgrimage by the Squire, his 20-year-old son.

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👉 The Knight's Tale in the context of The Two Noble Kinsmen

The Two Noble Kinsmen is a Jacobean tragicomedy, first published in 1634 and attributed jointly to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. Its plot derives from "The Knight's Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (1387–1400), which had already been dramatised at least twice before, and itself was a shortened version of Boccaccio's epic poem Teseida. This play is believed to have been originally performed in 1613–1614, making it William Shakespeare's final play before he retired to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he died in 1616.

Formerly a point of controversy, the dual attribution is now generally accepted by scholarly consensus.

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The Knight's Tale in the context of Teseida

Teseida (full title: Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia, or The Theseid, Concerning the Nuptials of Emily) is a long epic poem written by Giovanni Boccaccio c.1340–41. Running to almost 10,000 lines divided into twelve books, its notional subject is the career and rule of the ancient Greek hero Theseus (Teseo), although the majority of the epic tells the story of the rivalry of Palemone and Arcita for the love of Emilia. It is the main source of "The Knight's Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and therefore is the original source of The Two Noble Kinsmen, a collaboration by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. The exact sources of Boccaccio's knowledge about the ancient Greek world are unknown, but is likely that he gained the knowledge through his close friendship with Paolo de Perugia, a medieval collector of ancient myths and tales.

French poets Jeanne de la Font and Anne de Graville gained fame in the sixteenth century by writing French verse adaptions of Teseida.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← The Two Noble Kinsmen ← Teseida
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Ellesmere manuscript → Middle English language → Short story → Geoffrey Chaucer → The Canterbury Tales → General Prologue → Crusades → Terry Jones → Squire →