The Literature Book

68

TURN OVER THE

LEEF AND CHESE

ANOTHER TALE

THE CANTERBURY TALES (c.1387–14 0 0),

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

T

he use of an outer narrative

that envelops within it a

story (or a collection of

stories, or even stories inside

other stories) is a long-established

literary device. “Frame narratives”

provide context and structure for a

tale and often include a narrator, or

narrators, who can help engage the

reader directly. One Thousand and

One Nights successfully employed

this technnique, as did Giovanni

Boccaccio in his Decameron.

Although most earlier works used

the frame narrative to hold stories

around a single theme—often

religion—Geoffrey Chaucer used

it to far more colorful effect in

The Canterbury Tales, opening up

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

The frame narrative

BEFORE

c.8th–13th century One

Thousand and One Nights, a

collection of tales by different

authors from across the Islamic

world, is framed within the

story of Scheherazade.

1348–53 The Decameron, by

Italian Giovanni Boccaccio,

contains 100 stories set within

a tale of people fleeing the

Black Death.

AFTER

1558 The Heptameron, by

French author Marguerite

de Navarre, contains 72 short

stories, framed within a story

of 10 stranded travelers.

2004 English writer David

Mitchel l’s Cloud Atlas follows

the frame-narrative tradition,

including stories within stories

that travel over centuries.

US_068-071_CanterburyTales.indd 68 08/10/2015 13:04