A comparative study of Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales that explores the differences and similarities between the worlds that are portrayed by each text, with a focus on the strategies and limits of personal agency, and the significance and social dynamics of story-telling.

Robert W. Hanning is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University. He taught as a Visiting Professor at Yale, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and New York University. He was Kirk Professor of Medieval Literature at Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College and directed the Bread Loaf program at Lincoln College, Oxford on three occasions.

• Introduction: Having the World by the Tale: A new comparative reading of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales


• 1: Mapping the uncertain world: Texts and contexts


• 2: Fortuna, Fama, and the challenge to agency


• 3: Can you trust the sign? Uncertainty of signification, comprehension, and perception


• 4: The uncertainty of Intention


• 5: Power


• Bibliography