A Stranger at the Margins: Giovanni Boccaccio in John Lydgate’s Work

Perhaps the most important Chaucerian poet in the fifteenth century, John Lydgate nevertheless engages continually with non-English texts, whether by choice or as the result of a commission. Much of his minor poetry, and most of his major, consists of translations from French or Latin works: through translation Lydgate appropriates these texts and make them part of a national cultural heritage. This is particularly evident in the case of The Fall of Princes, a much amplified translation of Boccaccio’s De casibus via the French version by Laurent de Premierfait. In this paper I consider the prologues and envoys added by Lydgate as the means through which the poet reads the multi-lingual texts on which he is working. Particularly interesting, in this respect, is the appearance of Boccaccio and Chaucer in this peri-textual material – invoked as auctoritates, referred to as sources, even seen in the company of Petrarch, dispensing wisdom on their disciple. Chaucer and Boccaccio, as characters in the Fall of Princes, participate actively in the reflection on poetics and literary composition Lydgate inserts in his translation. As readers we are invited to follow their directions in order to set up the correct approach to the text.