Chaucer and Mandeville's Travels (article)

Chaucer and Mandeville’s Travels
By Josephine Waters Bennett, for Modern Language Notes (1953)

This article attempts to make links between Chaucer and Mandeville, and speaks in tentative tones that are later assured by Moseley’s article, I suppose (discussed in the previous post).

Essentially, Bennett argues for a borrowing from the Travels in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale. This is on the basis that (1) Chaucer’s “as tellen knyghtes olde” could be construed as a reference to Sir John Mandeville, the only popular author writing of the east who happened to be a knight, (2) the likely date for the writing of the Travels would have made the author a contemporary of Chaucer’s grandfather, therefore fitting the descriptor “olde” in the above-quoted line, (3) the wittiness of Mandeville in certain points of the Travels is akin to Chaucer’s, likely making the latter more disposed to think well enough of the former to borrow his work, and (4) the immense popularity of the Travels makes it a worthy cultural reference to make for Chaucer’s audience’s benefit.

However, as Moseley made clear in his article, at the time Chaucer was writing, the Travels was not yet popular in England. Would the merit of popularity on the continent make it a worthy cultural reference? Perhaps.

In any event, nothing to do with plants.