The main source, on which the Knight's Tale was based, was a long epic poem Teseida written by Giovanni Boccaccio. Although, Chaucer has used the storyline of Teseida almost without change of Boccacio's work, he made some rather important change in style, tone, structure and narration. The tone and mood of the Knight's Tale are radically different from what we find in proportions of Teseida – more unpleasant. The other remarkable change that Chaucer provides is the first person narration of the story, whereas Boccaccio’s work is narrated in the third person voice. Chaucer’s alterations to his source imply that he intends to make specific comments based on these . The modification, related to the description of temples and scenes, done by
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Unfortunately, the walls of these temples surprisingly present rather ghastly and unfavourable images to both characters and readers. Palamon, Arcite and Emily come to the temples with their most heartfelt requests and entreat their gods, surrounded by images of various degrees of cruelty, suffering and violence. But are all the images so frightening? The first temple described in the Knight's Tale belongs to Venus. Chaucer's interior of this temple presents the audience all the different views of love – especially the negative ones. The images on the walls depict the traditional sufferings of the courtly lover, but also portray the sinfulness that love can cause. Although the Knight confirms the presence of more paintings by saying: “than I kan make of mencioun,” and “I koude rekene a thousand mo,”, he mainly focuses on these images, in which each scene emphasizes the futility of love, such as Hercules, who was killed by his lover; Medea and Circes who held their loves against their will; and Narcissus, who died for his lover Echo (KnT 1937- 1966). From this statement of the narrator, we discover that the temple of Venus contains much more images as we may assume. Some of them, presumably, are these images that present a positive and pleasant dimension of love. Thus, why the narrator focuses on the
Unfortunately, the walls of these temples surprisingly present rather ghastly and unfavourable images to both characters and readers. Palamon, Arcite and Emily come to the temples with their most heartfelt requests and entreat their gods, surrounded by images of various degrees of cruelty, suffering and violence. But are all the images so frightening? The first temple described in the Knight's Tale belongs to Venus. Chaucer's interior of this temple presents the audience all the different views of love – especially the negative ones. The images on the walls depict the traditional sufferings of the courtly lover, but also portray the sinfulness that love can cause. Although the Knight confirms the presence of more paintings by saying: “than I kan make of mencioun,” and “I koude rekene a thousand mo,”, he mainly focuses on these images, in which each scene emphasizes the futility of love, such as Hercules, who was killed by his lover; Medea and Circes who held their loves against their will; and Narcissus, who died for his lover Echo (KnT 1937- 1966). From this statement of the narrator, we discover that the temple of Venus contains much more images as we may assume. Some of them, presumably, are these images that present a positive and pleasant dimension of love. Thus, why the narrator focuses on the