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The Clerk's Tale as a Possible Source for Pandosto

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Thomas H. McNeal
Thomas H. McNeal*
Affiliation:
East Texas State Teachers College
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Extract

Though the influence of Chaucer upon Greene has been commented upon from time to time by various critics, the similarity that exists between The Clerk's Tale and Pandosto has apparently gone unnoticed. This is in a manner surprising, since the two pieces show resemblances that run true throughout—in characters, in situations, and in general plot-structure. There is a lack, however, of parallel passages; and this may account somewhat for their not having been linked up before now. Greene's method in employing his material, too, has blurred the original outline, though it has by no means disguised it beyond recognition.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 1932 , pp. 453 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1932

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References

1 Spurgeon, Caroline F. E., Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, ii, 130, 131, 137; Camden, Carroll Jr., RES, Vol. vi, pp. 73–74.

2 For a brief account of sources that have been suggested for Pandosto, see H. B. Charlton's Introduction to The Winter's Tale, The Arden Shakespeare, pp. xi-xii.

3 References in this study are to Greene's Pandosto, Shakespeare Library Edition; Canterbury Tales, ed. J. M. Manly.

4 See pp. 70–80 of Pandosto, and ll. 729 ff. of The Clerk's Tale.