Medieval Literature
Federigo’s Falcon
Federigo’s
Falcon
Author: Giovanni Boccaccio (1314-1375)
Genre: Short Story; Frame Story
Source: Decameron – A collection of 100 stories
using the literary device of framing; Chaucer
imitated Boccaccio’s frame structure in The
Canterbury Tales.
Importance: Reveals medieval attitudes about
love, marriage, chivalry, and separation between
classes.
Background:
•Begins with a description of the Bubonic Plague
(specifically the epidemic that hit Florence, Italy in
1348).
•Leads into an introduction: 7 young women and 3
young men flee plague-ridden Florence to a villa in
the countryside for two weeks.
•To pass the time, each character tells one story for
each night at the villa. Fourteen days pass but two
days each week are set aside: one for chores and
one holy day.
•100 stories are told by the end of the ten days.
(Decameron = “10 days”)
Background (cont’d):
•Each character is “King” or “Queen” for one of the ten
days in turn, to choose the theme of the stories for the
day.
•Each day includes a short introduction and conclusion
describing the day’s activities. (Framing)
•In the whole of the collection, Boccaccio imitates a
variety of previous material and forms. His stories
mock the greed of the clergy, reveal tensions between
classes, and portray the perils and adventures of
travel.
•Topics: power of fortune; the power of human will;
love tales that end tragically; love tales that end
happily; tricks that people play on one another; stories
of virtue.
Summary:
Monna Giovanna’s son becomes seriously ill
and asks his mother for one thing only to
make him happy—Federigo’s Falcon.
Monna goes to Federigo’s farm to ask for it.
Because Federigo has nothing to serve so
great a woman (with whom he has been in
love), he roasts his beloved falcon & serves
it to her. He learns the true purpose of her
visit too late, & soon after, the child dies.
After a period of mourning, Monna is urged
to remarry & finally gives her heart to
Federigo.
Man sells all he has for true love; when she
is at his house he even cooks his prized
falcon to serve her. Ironically, she has come
to beg him for the falcon for her dying son.
Precursor to “The Gift of the Magi” by O.
Henry, has been used many times in tv
shows especially Christmas ones
7
Ballads
Author(s): English Commoners; Unknown
Genre: Ballads (Folk Ballads) are narrative poems
originally intended to be sung; usually focus on a
single incident; begin abruptly; use dialogue (&
dialect), repetition, and quatrains (four-line stanzas).
Rhyme scheme is often abcb or aabb.
Source: Oral tradition; Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border by Sir Walter Scott
Importance: Offer a glimpse of the lives of “ordinary
people.” They are the “true songs of the people.”
Subjects include: tragic love, domestic conflict,
crime, war, and shipwreck.
Background:
•No one knows when the first folk ballads appeared in Britain;
probably during the 12th century.
•Unwritten; passed along orally for many centuries.
•Most of the earliest ballads we know of probably date from the
15th century. At that time, no one paid much attention to them
as literature.
•1765, Bishop Thomas Percy published Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry. This helped ballads come to be recognized as
a part of Britain's literary heritage.
•Sir Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe, was influenced by Percy's
Reliques. Scott often traveled to the Scottish-English border
region to collect material on the subject. His Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border, published in 1803, is a pioneer work of
scholarship on the background and variations of Scottish
ballads.
Background (cont’d):
•“Barbara Allan,” “Sir Patrick Spens,” and “Get Up and Bar the
Door,” originated in this wild, rugged border country between
England and Scotland. Their language is the Scots dialect of
English.
• As they were passed along from person to person, place to
place, and generation to generation, the ballads often acquired
new words and new verses.
•No such thing as a “standard version” of a folk ballad, because
every balladeer feels free to make alterations. Literally hundreds
of versions of "Barbara Allan" have appeared in print. Folk
ballads, with their familiar melodies, are truly songs of the
people.
•Later writers, including Sir Walter Scott, produced literary
ballads in imitation of the traditional ones. Few literary ballads
have had the power of the old folk ballads to capture and hold
the imagination
Summary of “Sir Patrick Spens”:
This tragic ballad describes the loss at sea of a Scottish ship, its
commander, and the crew. The king needs a good sailor and is
told by an elderly knight, “Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor /
That sails upon the sea.” When Sir Patrick receives word, he is
upset because it is not a good season for setting sail (most likely
winter or early spring—full of storms). He submits to the king’s
will, however, and he and his crew all die at sea.
Summary of “Get Up and Bar the Door”:
This humorous ballad tells the story of a strong-willed husband
and wife who are both so stubbornly locked in argument that
they ignore common sense as well as danger. On a windy night,
the husband tells his wife to “Gae out and bar the door.” She
replies by saying she’s too busy with chores and that “It’s no be
barrd for me.” They made a deal that the first person to speak
had to go shut the door. At midnight, two burglars arrive. They
eat the couple’s food and then threaten to shave the husband’s
beard off while the other kisses the wife. When they find no
water to use to
shave the man’s beard he
finally speaks
up in protest. The wife then
happily
responds by pointing out that
he’s said the
first word and has to get up
and go bar the
door!