I found it interesting how Gower and Chaucer converted some of the social structures in the ancient tale to fit in with a more modern sensibility. In Gower’s version, Phebus’ “love” cuckolds him with a “yonge kniht”(790); in Chaucer’s version, Phoebus is the “flour of bachilrie” (125) whose “wyf” (139)sleeps with a man of inferior degree. Both medieval authors insert kinds of relationships into the story which make them fit in better within a context of courtly romances and medieval knights and their ladies but which is totally incongruous with the tale’s ancient origins. Yet, does a myth really belong to a certain time and age? Maybe Chaucer and Gower have done exactly what one ought to do with the myth, which is take the story template and give it a context and background that is more meaningful to its audience.
Yet the message of the tale changes as well with these slight changes. In Ovid’s version, the main message was simply that one ought not to convey information that the hearer will not like. In Chaucer, it becomes “A wikked tonge is worse than a feend,” (320) perhaps, because, after all, women cannot be expected to control their appetites. In Gower, the lesson is to “Be war therfore and sei the beste” (815). These slightly different morals seem to point to the way the authors apportion blame differently among Phoebus, Coronis, and the raven variously. Chaucer’s tale seems to place most of the blame on the raven; for him to tell Phoebus of the affair was “wikked.” Ovid, meanwhile, seems to depict Phoebus hasty action and mercurial nature as the cause for both the raven’s and Coronis’ unfortunate fates.

  If men shal telle proprely a thyng,
                  The word moot cosyn be to the werkyng.    
211         I am a boystous man, right thus seye I
212         Ther nys no difference, trewely
213         Bitwixe a wyf that is of heigh degree,
214         If of hir body dishonest she bee,
215         And a povre wenche, oother than this --
216         If it so be they werke bothe amys -
217         But that the gentile, in estaat above,
218         She shal be cleped his lady, as in love;
219         And for that oother is a povre womman,
220         She shal be cleped his wenche or his lemman.
221         And, God it woot, myn owene deere brother,
222         Men leyn that oon as lowe as lith that oother.
223         Right so bitwixe a titlelees tiraunt
224         And an outlawe or a theef erraunt,
225         The same I seye: ther is no difference.
                   

This is one of the central ideas of the Canterbury Tales that Chaucer has danced around, but has never explicitly expressed. You cannot change the essential nature of a beast or a man, and yet how that person or status is viewed is changed wholly dependent on the shifting sands of society. I believe this speaks directly to the notion of the Canterbury Tales as a commentary on the shifting roles of members of society. A priest is therefore a saint or a thief depending on the paradigm. 

Contradiction in the Manciple's Prologue and Tale

Jeremy pointed out some striking contradictions in the Manciple's Prologue and Tale, but I would like to highlight one more. The moral of the Manciple's Tale is that silence is golden: the Manciple tells the pilgrims, "The firste vertu, sone, if thow wolt leere, / Is to restreine and kepe wel thy tongue; / Thus lerner children whan that they ben yonge" (332-4). Not only is it best to keep silent, but it is also best never to be the bearer of bad news, the mistake of the poor crow: "Beth war, and taketh kepe what that ye seye: / Ne telleth nevere no man in youre lif / How that another man hath dight his wif" (310-2). And one further variation on the same theme, he says, "keep wel thy tonge, and kepe thy freend" (319). The Manciple tells us one: to be silent, two: not to be the bearers of bad news, and three: silence has more friends. I found his message incredible ironic considering the Prologue to the Tale, in which the Manciple goes on a rather long and nasty rant about the Cook. The Manciple says to the Cook, in front of all the other pilgrims, "Hoold cloos thy mouth, man, by thy fader kin! / The devel of helle sette his foot therin! / Thy cursed breeth infecte wol us alle" (37-9). It's one thing to subtly hint towards a friend's bad breath by offering him a mint, but to say that that the devil himself has set foot in someone's mouth is quite harsh. He even says, "Fy, stinking swin, fy! Foule moot thee falle!" (40). He calls the Cook a swine, and then wishes ill upon him-- this hardly seems fair to the Cook, who is probably just suffering from a bad hangover. The Manciple's insults seem even more offensive after hearing his Tale, in which he touts silence and making friends by keeping silence. Perhaps the Manciple should learn to take his own advice!

The Manciple ends his tale by saying, "He is thral to whom that he hath sayd / A tale of which he is now yvele apayd. / My sone, be war, and be noon auctour newe / Of tidynges, wheither they been false or trewe. / Whereso thou come, amonges hye or lowe, / Kepe wel thy tonge and thenk upon the crowe." (L. 357ff) This is not only incredibly revealing with regards to Chaucer's conception of discourse but also by extension alludes to the Tales themselves. Chaucer here, uses the tale from Ovid to make this strong point that one's words in a sense serve as a mill stone around one's neck. Moreover, he states taht regardless of the veracity or the tone of events it is better to be silent. This is curious because the Tales have themselves been fashioned as a compendia of stories and interactions from a particular event. Chaucer very directly seems to be referencing his trade and hinting at the dangers of verbosity.

This has been pointed to throughout the Manciple's tale, as he says "A jangler is to God abhomynable." (L. 343) This may again be the self-deprecation that Chaucer uses, as a means of fashioning the Canterbury Tales as a report of an actual event, while simultaneously highlighting its very textual nature. It is interesting that throughout this course we have seen Chaucer using other stories. In the aggregate one truly gets a sense of the deftness with which he chooses and then adapts stories to convey particular themes and the way he puts them into the mouth of his characters. In the case of the Manciple, whose words nearly get him in a fight in the Prologue his tale seems particularly fitting.

The narrator contradicts himself glaringly on two occasions in the Manciple's Tale. First, he claims that he is "a man noght textuel" and "wol not telle of textes never a del" immediately after citing a variety of sources in order to rationalize the irrationality of Phebus's measures to restrict his wife's freedom and ensure her fidelity (cf. 162 - 187). The absence of such allusions in the more traditional sources of the tale, amplifies the significance of the narrator's attempt to cover his tracks and downplay his knowledge of external sources. It is quizzical why he doing this when the elucidation of the woman's actions adds realism and logical justification to his tale.

The narrator again contradicts himself when he indicts men - "Alle thise ensamples speke I by thise men/ that ben untrewe, and nothing by wommen./ For men han evere a likerous appetit" - only to present a tale of a woman's adultery (187-189). Again, the narrator's interjections seem incongruous with his tale.

It seems that the narrator is trying to adopt a persona and stance that directly oppose that of the tale's ostensible teller and its narrative. The tale-teller demonstrates learnedness and sophistication, and establishes credility through his multiple allusions; the narrator tries to portray himself as a simple-minded and "boistous" (211) relayer of folklore. The tale recounts the a woman's betrayal of her husband; the narrator is adamant that only males are guilty of extra-marital affairs. I wonder what the purpose establishing dual and duelling narrator identities through this paradoxical set-up could be.

"If men shal telle proprely a thing/the word moot cosyn be to the workyng." (l. 209) The diction initially struck me as odd, as "cousin" seems a strange word choice when one is emphasizing precision and the exactness of word mirroring deed, yet upon reading the line a second time, I found myself thinking it seemed strangely apropos, thematically. The way that Chaucer and Ovid tell the tale, stringing other people's narratives in and relating by hearsay, it certainly seems "cosyn to the workyng." Though this is ostensibly the Manciple's tale, he repeatedly refers to the "wise clerks" (314) from whom he takes it, and strangely relinquishes the reins to his mother for the closing words.

I did think it interesting that Chaucer otherwise glossed over the family aspect, however. Ovid's inclusion of the first bird's tale, which brings in a curious thread of incest at the end ("But of what use was that to me if, after all, Nyctimene, who was changed into a bird because of her vile sins, was put into my place? Or have you not heard the tale all Lesbos knows too well, how Nyctimene outraged the sanctity of her father's bed?" 590), is completely dashed from the Chaucer. Family in Ovid seems to have a stifling function, as shown in the first bird's undoing (watching a family of girls unwrap a box against orders, which, contrary to the Pandora myth, here contains only a boy and a snake) and the Nyctimene parallel. It's arguable whether the mother in the Chaucer is serving the same function, as she is granted a voice for the final words of the piece, yet the voice is used only to ordain silence.

A major difference between the Manciple’s Tale and the story depicted in the Metamorphoses is the emphasis on social status. The Manciple takes great pains to establish Phebus’s high social worth. He then goes on to say: “This Phebus, which that thoghte upon no gile/ Deceived was, for al his jolitee/ For under him another hadde she/ A man of litel reputacioun/ Nat worth to Phebus in comparisoun” (196-200). In Ovid’s story, on the other hand, the narrator does not stress Phebus’s high status and refers to the lover simply as “the youth of Thessaly” (103). As a result of Chaucer’s alterations, the wife commits two transgressions: she is unfaithful to her husband and she crosses clearly defined class lines. Her act thus threatens to disrupt the social order. Since the figure of Phebus is associated with order, the murder of his wife could be read as an attempt to reestablish order. But his subsequent irrational behavior toward the bird makes such a reading impossible. The figure normally associated with order thus comes to be associated with chaos. A similar reversal takes place in the Manciple’s Prologue when the figure associated with disorder gains the capacity to bring harmony: “I se wel, it is necessarye/ Where that we goon, good drinke we with us carye/ For that wol turne rancour and disese/ T’acord and love, and many a wrong appese/ O Bacus, yblessed be thy name/ That so kanst turnen ernest into game” (95-100). I am curious to find out what other people make of this reversal. 

Is Chaucer anti-Semitic?

Considering whether Chaucer himself was anti-Semitic or not seems somewhat irrelevant to the actual literature and examining the text for itself; yet, the question haunts any reader who reads the Prioress’s tale, not just because we want a respected and admired literary figure to have a morality we find acceptable, but because his intent seems so important in framing an interpretation of the tale. Thus we try to divine from the text Chaucer’s own feelings on the matter, sure he must have some personal motive in telling a story like this. This was my first reaction, but upon further thought, I find it hard to believe that a poet and artist as skilled as Chaucer, and one who so obviously thought about and experimented with narratorial techniques, would position anti-Semitism in his work simply because he felt it. That’s not to say he wasn’t anti-Semitic, only that the anti-Semitism in this work might have a more literary purpose than just anti-Semitism for anti-Semitism’s sake, especially considering that it comes from the mouth of the Prioress, whom we have all already noted that the narrator treated with subtly ironic criticism in the Prologue.
Because we already know from the Prologue that the Prioress is a hypocrite and someone concerned more with the appearance of goodness and propriety than its substance, we can suspect her story of ringing false on some level. While I agree with Christen and Carlos that the irony in this tale is much less evident through a line-by-line analysis, I think the general ridiculousness and constant hyperbole of the tale lend themselves to a reading which places distance between Chaucer & his narrator and the Prioress. By general ridiculousness I mean the incredibly, overly pious little boy, the “Jewerye” whose only purpose is “foul usure and lucre of vileinye,” and the dead boy singing from a latrine. Aside from just the overall, seemingly exaggerated storyline, a few details also seemed off-key to me. The fact that the child sings “thurghout the Juerie” seems pretty obviously disrespectful and just obnoxious; while I know medieval people did not have our ideas about tolerance, I think the offensiveness of this behavior would be apparent to them. Also, the dead boy singing with his throat cut, which was supposed to be miraculous, had a sinister not that was hard to ignore. The phenomenon seemed more hellish than heavenly, especially when we learn toward the end of the story that Mary has enforced this uncomfortable life-after-death upon him because “Jesu Crist, as ye in bokes finde,/ wol that his glorye laste and be in minde,/ and for the worship of his moder deere” (652-654). So basically, because Mary and Jesus want glory, they grant this little kid the “boon” of getting his throat slit and then still being able to sing about them afterward. Lucky kid. I also thought there was something off about the abbot, whom the prioress twice hesitates in describing as “holy.” Perhaps he is holy in the same way the Prioress is courteous: in appearance only. In conclusion, I think it's possible that Chaucer may be trying to criticize the Prioress, her values, and maybe even the burgeoning popular narrative about evil Jews.

irony in the Prioress' tale (?)

Like Carlos, I'm finding it quite difficult to read the tale as anything other than blatant anti-semitism. (Though Courtney raises a good point about historical context and the "woman question" parallel.) Nonetheless, I scoured it for irony and found a handful of ambiguous, wormy asides. The first thing that I found curious was the lack of framing-- we receive the Prioress' Prologue sans quotation marks, with only a "--quod she" (453) to fray the immediacy of her point of view. The lack of quotations does, worryingly, suggest that the Prioress' views merge seamlessly with the narrator's (as does the use of "oure" throughout), yet the "quod she" could frustrate that reading. It isn't a solitary occurrence, either; the "quod she" appears a second time in the narrative, again tripping up the Prioress' rhapsodizing: "The white lamb celestial-- quod she--" (581). Each time, the "quod she" undercuts the momentum of the Prioress' narrative, and perhaps fuels the argument that there is some sort of skeleton of Chaucerian irony underlying the tale.

To bolster this, I'd point to two other instances where Chaucer seems to be invoking the sly aside: "as monkes been-- or elles oghte be [holy]--" (643) and "This hooly monk, this abbot, hym meene I" (670). The second example shows the descent from holiness to progressively more human institutions ("abbot," highlighting administrative rather than holy function) and subjectivity ("hym meene I"), again planting a seed (... or a field's worth) of doubt as to the Prioress' objectivity. While this is the slimmest of evidence to go on, it was the best my irony reconnaissance mission could dredge up.

Before I begin what I can only assume will be yet another blog about anti-semitism, I'd like to commend Cristen for the term "overwrought apostrophe." This prologue could have been titled Overwrought Apostrophe. 

I've read and reread the prioress tale looking for some shading of complexity that would lead me to believe that this was anything other than anti-semitism and I don't see it.  The Rubin retelling of the story merely shows Chaucer's reinterpretation of the voices, but it fails to show that the tale is not itself anti-semitic.  I would even point to the angelic description of the prioress in the prologue as a sign that the words she speaks in her tale are meant to be taken at face value. 

I could go on recapitulating, but I don't want to be redundant, this is anti-semitic. 

Clearly expressed in the Prioress's tale is the anti-Semitism framed in Christian lore. Chaucer, strengthens this connection with the Prioress inserting herself into the tale in a number of ways. She begins the tale by invoking God directly and goes on to say, "Right so fare I, and therfore I yow preye, / Gydeth my song that I shal of yow seye." (L. 486ff). In this way, while it is her tale she tells it with the guidance and power of God. Furthermore, rather than simply recounting the tale, the Prioress inserts herself into the tale, such as in when she says, "As I have seyd, thurghout the Juerie" (L. 551), which serves to emphasize her connection to the tale. This then casts further asides as originiating with her, as when she states, "Fro thennes forth the Jues han conspired / This innocent out of this world chace." (L. 565).

That her story varies with the stories presented in Rubin's text speaks to Chaucer's authorial hand, if not in adapting the tale, in selecting it from a wide array of it. Rubin offers strong historical context for the story, however I believe he presents an overly academic explanation for a rather simple problem. His assertion of the Jewish connection to the eucharist and "fears of the danger which Jews posed to the physical and spiritual well-being of Christians" (pg. 4) may overlook the culturally universal concept of ethnocentrism. The Jews lived apart from the Christian society, as mentioned in the Prioress's tale with her mentioning, "...thurghout the Juerie / This litel child, as he cam to and fro" (l. 551). Harsh treatment likely arose out of the Jews being the other and the fears of their effect of spirtitual well-being were likely how dislike/fear of 'the other' were vocalized, rather than from whence they originated. Moreover, that the Jews had this connection to the Eucharist I believe speaks to the power of this hatred/fear rather than a cause of it. Rubin also seems to gloss over the deicide aspect of the harsh treatment of Jews, which seems a more likely cause of harsh treatment than indirect connection with the Eucharist.

Deviations from the Marian Tale

Reading the Prioress's Prologue and Tale in conjunction with the selections from Rubin's Gentile Tales was a very helpful reminder of the importance of historical context. Just as the question of whether Chaucer was a misogynist or simply expressing the commonly held views of his time in the Legend of Good Women arose, the Prioress's Tale made me wonder whether she should be read as a flagrant anti-semite or simply the typical Christian in the fourteenth century. The Rubin tale both clarified and complicated this question for me: the fact that this was a commonly held opinion of the time does answer part of the question, but the very drastic changes she makes to the traditional Marian tale raise even more questions. The Prioress makes several changes: first of all, the boy is Christian (497) and not a Jew, and he is not thrown in an oven by his father but rather is murdered (quite differently, but very violently all the same) by "an homicide" (575) that was "yhired by Jews" (575). This change seemed very striking to me: whereas it is still obviously expresses some anti-Semitism, the fact that the Jews hired a murderer to kill the boy rather than committing the crime themselves is very different from (and to me, much less transgressive than) a Jewish father throwing his own son into an oven. The Prioress also describes that "oure firste foo, the serpent Sathanas" (560) was the one to provoke the Jews to action. This too is very significant: by having Satan be the instigator, it makes the Jew's actions seem somewhat less forgivable, since Satain also even compelled many Christians to deviate from their path to God in the Bible. Finally, the last striking difference I found was the fact that the boy does not live at the end of the tale, but rather eventually passes (the Prioress says that the monk removes the grain from his tongue and "yaf up the goost ful softely" [672]). Again, this is an incredibly important change to the traditional tale, in which the boy comes out of the oven unscathed due to the protection of the Virgin Mary. It seems so strange to me that in the traditional tale, a Jewish boy is saved by the Virgin, yet in the Prioress's tale, a Christian boy dies. These three changes all to me seem actually much more sympathetic to Jews than the traditional Marian tale described by Rubin. Is it possible that this tale really is not about anti-Semitism at all?

At the end of her tale, the Prioress says: “Preye eek for us, we sinful folk unstable/ That of his mercy God so merciable/ On us his grete mercy multiplye/ For reverence of his moder Marye. Amen” (687-90). I find these lines curious in the context of a story that emphasizes the righteousness of Christians and the sinfulness of Jews. Her last lines appear to dissolve the distinction set up by her story. Does she, on some level, compare herself to the Jews in these lines? And do the lines, to some extent, soften the harsh treatment of the people she describes with such seeming contempt?  

The narrator of the Prologue besieges Mary to "gideth [his] song" because he desperately wants to glorify her but finds it difficult to do so. He presents mountainous difficulties to the task of exaltation, exclaiming that of Mary's virtue "no tonge may expresse in no science", and lamenting that his "konning is so waik" and that he, like a child, "kan unnethes any word expresse" (476, 481, 485). Like the narrator, the child in the tale bemoans his rudimentary language capacity and his restricted "konninge" in honoring Mary (cf 523-524, 657). The fate of the child seems to be the text's answer to the narrator's plea.

The manner in which the events after the child's death address the deficiencies of science, tonge and song is strikingly literal. The solution, administered by the Virgin herself, to the inept tongue bounded by the limits of science, takes the form of a divinely empowered dead martyr's tongue endlessly chanting praises it learned by rote while living. The tale's exemplification and glorification of the tragic martyr, especially after highlighting the difficulties of being devout, seem to advocate overcoming the limits of the intellect and ability through the rote and mechanical enshrining of the divine through songs of praise incomprehensible to the speaker and the sacrifice of oneself . It also comes perilously close to alluding that devout but antagonist acts are the means of precipitating miracles and circumventing the realm of the ordinary.

The self-referential moment in the introduction to the Man of Law is particularly interesting. I think it shows, if nothing else, that Chaucer feels himself sufficiently removed from responsibility for the narration by the many layers of narrators in the Tales that he can point back at himself; at the same time, as an author, he invariably would know that his readers/listeners would invariably trace the responsibility for what he says back to him. Thus it is ironic, a wink and a nod, and surely some kind of hint for the reader about the way he perceived and intended his relationship to his writing and its narrators. He seeks to complicate this relationship when the Man of Law tells us that

“But certeinly no word ne writeth he
Of thilke wikke ensample of Canacee,
That loved hir owene brother synfully –
Of swiche cursed stories I sey fy! –“ (77-80).

He denies that Chaucer would ever tell such tales even as he does, albeit in abbreviated format, through himself. Chaucer seems to indicate here a disconnect between the values of the author and his narrator, and argue for a greater latitude of subject material, justified because it passes from the mouth of his character and narrator, not his own. Added to all this is the fact that we are hearing all these words through Chaucer’s pilgrim, who may or may not bear some resemblance to him, and who certainly filters and affects the tale we receive from him as well.

Man of Law

Like the others, I found it difficult to locate the Man of Law's Introduction, Prologue and Tale within Chaucer's oeuvre. I kept searching for the sly remark or damning bit of exposition that would unhinge the tale for me, and show the trajectory of Chaucer's intent; I couldn't accept that it was simply a straightforward hagiography. My reflexive search for irony attests to the truth of Spearing's wry and witty observation... "many academics are evidently interested in the quality and nature of Chaucer's poetry only in so far as they can claim that it is intended to be bad" (Spearing 145).

Personally, because the introduction was so incredibly self-referential ("I kan right now no thrifty tale seyn/that Chaucer, though he kan but lewedly/on metres and on rymyng craftily/hath seyd hem in swich Englissh as he kan" l. 46), I found it hard to slow my impulse to give it a postmodern spin. It seemed to me that Chaucer could be parodying and thus parrying the figure that the public would go on to misinterpret him as: the moral Chaucer, given staid and starchy breath in the form of the narrator. Chaucer also litters the tale with little tags (such as "and wel rede I [in my source] he looked bisiliy" 1095) that worry away at the narrative, perpetually bringing its artifice and his authorship back into focus. It seems to be a caricature of "Chaucer the scribe," blindly notating all that follows in his pages.

The Man of Law's Introduction

I'm not quite sure what to make of the Man of Law's Introduction, Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue just yet, but for me the most fascinating part was definitely the very beginning in the Introduction. I was struck by how poetic and intelligent the Host appears in the first forty or so lines. Although the first stanza is narration by the poet, it very eloquently describes the Host using the positioning of the sun to tell the time of day: "Oure Hoost saugh wel that the brighte sonne / The ark of his artificial day hath ronne / The ferthe part, and half an houre and moore" (1-3). The narrator does remind the reader that the Host "were nat depe ystert in loore" (4), but I found myself ignoring that line after the Host further uses his knowledge of the shadows and of the position of "Phebus" (10).

The Host's ensuing words to the pilgrims continued to surprise me. Whereas thus far the Host has seemed to be quite rowdy and reckless a character, he is incredibly well spoken here. As he is urging the pilgrims not to lose time, his speech resembles an epic simile, albeit reversing the traditional order:
Lordinges, the time wasteth night and day

And steleth from us, what prively slepinge,

And whatthurgh necligence in our wakinge,

As dooth the streem that turneth nevere again,

Descendinge fro the montaigne into plain. (20-4)

He goes on to quote the advice of Seneca (25), so as to lend authority to his suggestion, and then offers them another metaphor about how time is irretrievable, just as virginity is (29-31). These opening stanzas were probably my favorite throughout all of the parts of the Man of Law's section, although I am having trouble discerning their significance. I'm not sure why Chaucer would have the Host suddenly come forth with such florid, poetic language full of metaphors and references, when otherwise the Host really comes off as an uneducated layman.

One other section of the Introduction I found incredibly intriguing was the Man of Law's sigh that Chaucer (not the pilgrim nor poet, but presumably some "other" writer even greater than Ovid... how impossibly cheeky he is!) has already written in poetry all their is to tell. Still, though, he says: "But nathelees I recche noght a bene, / Thogh I come after him with hawe-bake. / I speke in prose, and lat him rymes make" (94-6). However, he then goes on to give us an incredibly long tale in poetry, not prose, complete with rhyme. In fact, he actually changes the rhyme scheme used in what we've read thus far (as far as I can tell, though I did not check every line). Whereas the General Prologue, the Wife of Bath, and the Pardoner all have rhyming schemes of AABBCC, as does the Introduction to the Pardoner's Tale, as soon as he begins with his Prologue, he changes it. His stanzas are not only all of equal length, but all follow the rhyme scheme ABABBCC-- it's almost as if he is one-upping the rest of The Canterbury Tales despite his claim of inferiority!

The Man of Law's Tale offers critical insight into Chaucer's dealing with the nature of speech. From the outset he blurs the line of fiction and reality by referring to himself (the author) stating, "That Chaucer, thogh he kan but lewedly / On metres and on rymyng craftily, / Hath seyd hem in swich Englissh as he kan." (L. 47ff). The Man of Law goes on to reference Chaucer's own works. In this way Chaucer attempts to cast the Canterbury Tales as a work of reporting, of actual events apart from literature by inserting his own literature into the story. The tale he tells of Custance reveals women's status in society. Custance states, "I, wrecche womman, no fors though I spille! / Wommen are born to thraldom and penance, / And to been under mannes governance." (L. 285ff) Thus Custance states what comes to be seen in the tale, that women are subject to the whims of men almost as a matter of property, for her father in a sense traded her as a means of converting the Sultan and presumably forging an alliance. This is important because as Man of Law women become elements of agreements. Yet, also illuminated by Custance's subjection to the will of men is the role of relgion and Christ as protector. No matter the trevails which Custance encounters, which are for the most part enacted by other women, it is Christ who protects her. In fact when all others were slain by the Sowdanesse it is stated, "Men myghten asken why she was nat slayn / Eek at the fesste? Who myghte hir body save? / And I snwere to that demande agayn, / Who saved Danyel in the horrible cave" (L. 470ff). This concentration on relgion offers critical insight into Chaucer toying with the idea of speech. The Man of Law's offers a very rousing relgious and allegorical tale, yet he is demeaned by the Parson in the epilogue. This is not because of the content of his tale but rather for who he was when he said it for which the host calls him a Lollard. Chaucer has toyed with speech by putting talesin the mouths of characters which based on their occupations they do not seem to fit.

The Man of Law's Tale depicts a world in which females and males are both victims and villians of love. After reading the tale, it occurred to me that the Man of Law's allusion to the Legend of Good Women in the Prologue of the wordes of the Hoost to the compaignye served the purpose of creating irony (the Legend of Good Women emphasizes the tragic innocence of its female characters while the Man of Law's actual tale features many acts of villiany), whose function was to oppose and expose the bigotry of the narrator in the Legend of Good Women. Indeed, the Man of Law's summary of the Legend of Good Women (cf. 60 - 76) is less slanted toward female innocence and helplessness than the actual work is, and displays a more nuanced portrayal of the actual female and male protagonists the Legend references, acknowledging several of the female characters' acts of villiany - precisely what the Legend of Good Women neglects (cf. 69, 72-73) - while not emphasizing male infidelity as much as the actual work does. The Man of Law's reading of the Legend of Good Women and his perception of gender roles is immediately established as different from the Chaucer who wrote the Legend of Good Women, setting us up for a tale in which female and male treachery and suffering occurs.

Paradoxically, some narratorial interjections are at odds with this initial setup and the pattern of events in the tale itself. From line 365-372 the narrator derides and castigates women for the grievances which befall mankind in sin and marriage. To me, this assertion is incongruous to the tale as apart from mother of the Sowdan and Donegild, the knight - a male - also destroys Custaunce's marriage and exacerbates her sorrow. At this stage, I am unable to reconcile this conflict.

The Pardoner's Prologue, in which he freely admits that "For min entente is nat but or to winne,/And nothing for correcioun of sinne," (403-404) sets up an interesting commentary on the relationship between teller and tale. The pardoner makes it clear that he tells tales explicitly for his own profit, and their content does not reflect his own values, but rather what he thinks his audience wishes to hear from him. I wonder what Chuacer is trying to say here about his own relation to the morality which his tales sometimes seem to advise? Where exactly does morality fit into the Canterbury Tales and whose morality is it? The Chaucer-narrator-character dynamic which makes the source of any sentiment hard to locate is further complicated by the Pardoner's blatant hypocrisy in this case. We are fully aware of his actual avarice even as he vehemently insists
Til Crist hadde boght us with his blood agayn!
Lo, how deere, shortly for to sayn,
Aboght was thilke cursed vileynye!
Corrupt was al this world for glotonye.(501-504)
This leaves with a weird double consciousness that puts the intent of the story in even more uncertainty than usual; are we meant to disdain the admonitions against greed since they come from a corrupt source?
Even more interesting is the pardoner's attempt to lure the host into giving money to him after he has told his story, even though he has already told him he does not believe a word of it! Is the pardoner just hopelessly dense, or does he have faith in a story's power to convince apart from the motives or involvement of its teller?

I thought the Pardoner's prologue and tale we're a great example of Chaucer's humor. The two tales were a joke told in reverse. The Pardoner, a man charged with giving forgiveness for sins, uses the prologue to proclaim how he engages in the deadly sins.  Pride-For Certes many a predicaioun comth ofte time of ivel entencioun, som for plesance of folk and flaterye, (404-408)

Wrath-Thus quyte I folk that doon us dispesances, thus spitte I out my venym under hewe, Of hoolynesse, to semen hooly and trewe (413) 

Lust (lines 453) 

Sloth 444-446

Gluttony-452

 Then the actual tale is one that shows the hypocrisy by which the Pardoner lives.  While I ask of forgiveness of Foucalt and any that cringe at the mention of biography, I cannot help but wonder how much anti-indulgences sentiment was apparent at the time of Chaucer's writing. While this work predates Martin Luther, I can only assume that the sentiments against the practice of indulgences was present at the time. (?)

We know from the General Prologue that the Pardoner is corrupt, "Upon a day he gat hym moore moneye / Than that the person gat in monthes tweye; / And thus, with feyned flaterye and japes, / He made the person and the peple his apes." (L. 702). Yet, his direct admission of fraud, and greed is nonetheless shocking, "Is al my prechyng, for to make hem free / To yeven hir pens, and namely unto me. / For myn entente is nat but for to wynne, / And nothyng for correccioun of synne." (L. 401). He Reemphasizes this corruption and hypocrisy with his actions and his tale. Before he even begins his tale he states, "I graunte, ywis," quod he, "but I moot thynke / Upon som honest thyng while that I drynke." (L. 327) and then goes on to give a literal sermon on the harms of drinking and intoxication. However, his tale of the three men who come across the gold and are eventually each killed as a result of their avarice is an especially good tale that conveys the danger of avarice. That the Pardoner has already admited that he uses tales such as this to obtain money shows truly how skilled he is, and by extension how talented the poet is to weave such a richely textured character. That he ends by trying to show/pawn his relics adds one final characteristic to the Pardoner: stupidity, for he has already informed the entire group of his modus operandi yet still tries to push his fraud on them.

The Pardoner and False Seeming

Today's two readings were a very interesting pairing. Like last week's supplementary readings to the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, the Romance of the Rose revealed the sources from which Chaucer drew inspiration while writing the Pardoner's Prologue and Tale. Unsurprisingly, they are remarkably similar: the Pardoner's Prologue completely mirrors False Seeming's speech to love. They both begin with strangely honest introductions, admitting all of their sins and trickery without an ounce of shame (the Pardoner says twice, "I preche nothing but for coveitise" [433]); they both reference the same Christian belief in "living by laboring with his own hands, his own body" rather than begging (De Lorris 11319); neither have any qualms about robbing the "povereste widwe in a village, / Al sholde hir children sterve for famine" (Chaucer 450-1). There were so few differences between their speeches-- in fact, the only marked difference I noticed was their audience. Whereas at the end of the Pardoner's Tale, the Host immediately curses his deceitful ways and throws various lewd insults at him without care as to any response the Pardoner might have had, the reaction of Love to False Seeming is rather different. Love, despite all that False Seeming has just revealed about himself, still feels the need to ask, "'...will you keep your agreement with me?'" (11985). Of course, False Seeming swears yes and promises the utmost loyalty. Love is not quite so naive as to accept that answer and asks, "'How! It is against your nature'" (11989), but ultimately ends up believing False Seeming's persuasive rhetoric and believing him. Perhaps this is a sly way of reinforcing the old saying, Love is blind?

The Pardoner, in the beginning of his tale, denounces the sins of drunkenness and gambling - misdeeds the 3 protagonists are engaged in. He then dedicates a large section of his tale to expounding on scripture and authorial texts in justification of his reproval of such sins. This builds the expectation that the focus of the tale will be about such sins and the punitive consequences of committing them. However, these sins do not feature at all in the tale, which is ultimately about betrayal arising from avariciousness. The relevance of the Pardoner's sermon is rendered highly dubious. This resonates with the Pardoner's prologue, which exposes how his sermons fail to practically relate to or resolve any of the difficulties of daily life - e.g. he advocates the mitigation of jealousy in spite of one's wife's flirtatiousness (cf. 366-369).

The underlying truth which recurs in both the Prologue and the tale is that avarice is the root of all evil - the creed of the undevout Pardoner. The Pardoner's tale and Prologue, through featuring excessive, deceitful and ultimately impotent religious teachings and authorial texts, question the legitamacy and relevance of such authorial figures in daily life.

I found the Pardoner a very difficult character to get a read on; from the way in which he set up his tale, brazenly stacking up sins, I assumed he was confident and sardonic, and was heavily bracketing the tale in irony. The overwrought apostrophe "O glotonye, ful of cursednesse! O cause first of oure confusioun! O original of oure dampnacioun!" (498) seemed to suggest that, as did the futility of his tale. (Three men attempt to hunt down death, and summarily kill each other.) His reaction to the tale in particular seemed so overblown and vague "O cursed synne of alle cursedenesse! O traytours homycide, o wikkednesse! O glotonye, luxurie and hasardrye!" (895) that I assumed it was pure performance, with no small degree of sarcasm. However, his final action in the tale goes completely against that reading; his anger at the Host's reaction suggests one who is oblivious to his own hypocrisy, and is all a-flutter at the notion of blasphemy in general.

The kiss split into a 70:30 ratio of bizarre to interesting for me. The Pardoner essentially calls him out beforehand, with some fairly taunting words: "for he is moost enveloped in sinne"... "thou shalt kisse the relikes everychon" (942), the antagonist tinge to which suggests that they have some sort of history. Chaucer seems to be willfully passing over chunks of The Pardoner's history/psychology here and leaving readers in the dark.

As I was reading the Pardoner’s section, I was reminded of a scene in George Bernard Shaw’s play, Major Barbara. In the scene, a powerful war industrialist offers a donation to the Salvation Army.  Before handing his check to the Salvation Army Commissioner, he gives an overly theatrical speech that draws attention to the violence behind the money. He thus makes it impossible for the Commissioner to close her eyes to the fact that she is accepting blood money. Via this act, the arms industrialist illustrates that the Salvation Army on some level becomes complicit in his creation of destructive weapons. I feel like the relationship between the arms industrialist and the Salvation Army Commissioner is somewhat similar to that between the Pardoner and the pilgrims. Before he tells his tale, the Pardoner openly admits to the fake nature of his relics. He uses them to make money, he says. But upon the completion of his story, he claims that the relics are real and asks the pilgrims for contributions: “I have relikes and pardoun in my male/ As faire as any man in Engelond/ Whiche were me yeven by the popes hond/ If any of yow wole, of devocion/ Offren and han myn absolucion/ Com forth anon, and kneleth here adoun” (920-925). The offer, which invites the pilgrims to buy absolution and participate in the Pardoner’s hypocrisy, places them in a similar position to that of the Salvation Army Commissioner of Shaw’s play. But while the character in Major Barbara accepts the offer, becoming complicit in the unchristian acts, The Host rejects the Pardoner’s offer. 

Why does the Wife of Bath ramble through such an extensive prologue? 

Chaucer presents an image of a strong willed, free-thinking woman who would live by her own accord. She defies the prevailing thought of her time and gives her own interpretation of scripture (lines 77-145) she speaks freely of Ovid, and Ptholomy and rips the pages from her fifth husbands book.  Chaucer seems to glaringly protrude from this portrait of the lady and his voice seems to be heard over hers throughout the prologue. But I put that aside, for what I know of Chaucer's intent is before me on the page. Chaucer presents a woman of thought and insight. So what do we make of the tale that she tells? What does he mean to illuminate with the story of an errant knight that defiles a maid and must search for an eternal truth? Is Chaucer mocking marriage as is done in the Romance of the Rose? 

Chaucer always seems to be constructing complicated edifices with trap doors and trick bookcases, and the Wife of Bath's prologue is no exception. Aside from his characteristic "blameth nat me" near the beginning ("If that I speke after my fantasye/as taketh not agrief of that I seye/for mine entente nys but for to pleye." lines 190-192) and the way in which the whole thing is a massive looping digression, almost wholly unrelated to the rather pat tale itself, I lit upon this passage as particularly interesting. Chaucer sets up clerks and lovers as diametrically opposed: "Each falleth in otheres exaltacioun /and thus, God woot, Mercurie is desolat/In Pisces, where Venus is exaltat/and Venus falleth ther Mercurie is reysed./Therfore no womman of no clerk is preysed." (lines 702-706) Isn't this another instance of Chaucer, as the 'mindlessly scribbling' clerk, slyly undercutting his words? In highlighting the narratorial bias, does he mitigate what the story depicts? Does he truly believe in the venal, scheming women of his framework, or is it only another puffed-up parody?

Leicester Jr. brings up an interesting concept of "Chaucer the poem" and that through the characters of the poem we discover the artist behind the work. I think this is an excellent line of reasoning. Attempts to discern the "author" from the "character" is inherently problematic. Leicester states that "we come across a passage that we have difficulty reconciling with the sensibility - the temperament or the training or the intelligence - of the pilgrim in question...[we say] this passage must be the work of Chaucer the poet." He disagrees with this, as do I. Our judgement of what is Chaucer the poet is based on a likely personal and certainly arbitrary set of standards. Furthermore it requires a frankly wide jump in reasoning to assert all sections which seem out of character to the poet and not the character. It should be noted as Leicester, Jr. makes clear that the poet is everywhere; he is the tales. Moreover, as he as a poet clearly writes for multiple voices it would be logical that he could write for multiple opinions, and indeed harbor multiple even contradictory opinions.

Leicester Jr. makes the excellent point that these characters are "products" rather than "producers" of their tales. In the Wife of Baathe's tale she defends premarital sex stating "Thou seist that oxen, asses, hors, and houndes, / They been assayed at diverse stoundes; / Bacyns, lavours, er that men hem bye" (l. 285ff). She uses this and a series of other analogies. This sets up the Wife of Baathe as not only self-aware, but reasoning and the originator of a line of questioning which undermines what I presume to be the moral characterizations of such behavior. It would be interesting to see if these analogies would resonate with those in Chaucer's audience, thus supporting her point, or are not analogous and thus reemphacizing her lechery.

Pagan Elements

In both the Wife of Bath's Prologue and the Romance of the Rose, there was a very strange amalgamation of Christian and pagan spirituality that seemed extremely prominent to me. Starting with the Wife of Bath's Prologue, I found it very difficult to discern to what faith she prescribed. Although she begins her prologue by extensively discussing the Bible and Jesus's word for around 150 lines, as her prologue goes on, she seems to both forget her Christian piety and hint towards her other spiritual beliefs. One such example is when she implies that if women are deceitful or manipulative, God has purposely made them so: "For al swich wit is yeven us in oure birthe; / Deceite, weping, spinning, God hath yeve / To wommen kindely, whil they may live" (400-2). It seems slightly transgressive to me for her both blame her faults on God, and imply that He purposely made women such conniving creatures as if to torment men. Later, she gives even more reason to question her piety when she discusses how influenced by Venus and Mars she is: "For certes, I am al Venerien / In feeling, and min herte is Marcien. / Venus me yaf my lust, my likerousnesse, / And Mars yaf me my sturdy hardinesse" (609-12). She seems not only to believe in the Greek/Roman gods, but also in astrology, all as governing supernatural forces.

This combination of religions is also apparent in the Romance of the Rose. In the Jealous Husband's speech, he says that women are "misguided fools" who "give great shame to God" because "they do not consider themselves rewarded with the beauty that God gives them," and instead a woman "preens herself and primps as she goes through the town" (p 164, c. 9045). He is ostensibly implying that women are impious for not being grateful for and happy with what God has bestowed upon them, and yet he seems incredibly displeased with just about everything he has and does not. When he describes his feelings, he makes it more than obvious that he is quite guilty of various sins. He says, "I am overcome with envy of their comfortable life" (p. 167, c. 9250) and "I quite pine away with anger" (p. 167, c. 9269). But it was quite unnecessary for him to admit those sins, because he makes it rather apparent otherwise-- especially when he calls his wife's mother a "dirty painted old whore" (p. 168, c. 9345).

In The Wife of Bath’s prologue, the narrator says: “By God, if wommen hadde writen stories/ As clerkes han within hir oratories/ They wolde han write of men moore wikkednesse/ Than al the mark of Adam may redresse” (235). The suggestion in this passage is that a female narrator would reverse the sentiments of misogynist literature. And yet, the prologue, which is ostensibly created by a woman, perpetuates many of the misogynist stereotypes. For instance, she says that “half so boldely kan ther no man/ Sweren and lien as a womman kan” (219). She also claims that “deceit, weping, spinning, God hath yeve/ To wommen kindely, whil they may live” (225). And she writes “Namely abedde hadden they meschaunce/ Ther wolde I chide and do hem no plesaunce/ I wolde no lenger in the bed abide/ If that I felte his arm over my side/ Til he hadde maad his raunceon unto me” (225). Furthermore, she says: “I loved nevere by no discrecion/ But evere folwed I min appetit” (233). Does the Wife of Bath thus confirm that the male accusations are based on truths? Does she suggest that the attitudes toward women in patriarchal society are so ingrained in the culture as to make it impossible for women to envision themselves in another light? Or should her misogynist comments simply not be taken seriously?  

It was interesting to me that Donaldson began an essay which argued that “the device of the persona has many functions, so integrated with one another that to try to sort them out produces both oversimplification and distortion” by declaring that “Chaucer the pilgrim…is not really Chaucer the poet.” He even goes on to distinguish Chaucer the poet from Chaucer the civil servant; while perhaps too confining and guilty of the oversimplification which he himself bemoans, his insistence that we think of these three different aspects of Chaucer as different entities does serve to differentiate sharply between the author, the authorial voice, and the narrator. As Donaldson points out, these three very different parts of the storytelling process too often merge into an undifferentiated jumble in the reader’s mind. I agree with Donaldson that this harms rather than helps our understanding of the text; I’m not sure that I agree that these are the only authorial personas which one ought to consider. I think rather than one narrator voice and one poet voice, it might be useful to think of these as operating upon a scale of tones. After all, the narrator’s own character is less important than the story being told, and it is not inconceivable that Chaucer might alter his pitch so that the tone might be different for different passages.

Lawton

"There are welcome signs that Chaucer criticism has begun to move away from personae to tone, and will try to accomodate the "telling difference" in a conceptual framework informed by language and style rather than the dramatic fallacy." (Lawton 4) While conceding to Lawton his vast superiority of knowledge on this subject, I'm not sure that I'm ready to "accelerate this movement". 

Isn't it critical to the understanding of the text that we understand Chaucer's intent in his use of different voices and his dramatic decisions ? The frames that Chaucer employs with his use of multiple story tellers can be said to contain both "closed" and "open" personaes, and I dare to say that there there is a danger of glossing over them and focusing on the Chaucer's framework for Canterbury Tales.

Chaucer the Pilgrim

I found Donaldson's argument very strange. It seemed that he was criticizing previous interpretations of the General Prologue for being too one-sided (Chaucer as a "wide-eyed jolly, rolypoly little man" [928] or the descriptions expressing "an opinion peculiar to the Middle Ages" [929], "or else Chaucer's tongue is said to be in his cheek" [929]), and yet his view seems rather one-sided to me as well. I find it very hard to believe that "the reporter is, usually acutely unaware of the significance of what he sees, no matter how sharply he sees it" (929). Perhaps this assertion would be more believable if there were only a few cases where the narrator points out deliberate contradictions between the speech and actions of the other pilgrims, but he does this for almost every single pilgrim. Likewise, it seems too coincidental for the narrator to include three euphemisms for the Wife of Bath's salacious behavior (as is the case for other pilgrims).

I also find his analysis of the portrait of the Prioress unconvincing. Donaldson suggests that the pilgrim "cared little whether amiable nuns were good nuns." Her portrait did not seem to indicate so much to me that she was a bad nun, but rather that she was a shallow, fake person whose appearance was rather different to her true character. If he were actually trying to express his admiration for her, it would seem strange that he would present a good portrait of a nun but such scathing ones of the rest of the religious figures (again, I truly do not except Donaldson's notion that the narrator is "impressed by the Monk's virility" or shows "wholehearted approval" for the Friar [931]). It seems naive to me to think of the narrator as so naive, when there are so many obvious coincidences that cannot be accounted for should we not recognize the narrator's sarcasm.

I did not agree with Lawton on the some of the instances when he interprets Chaucer's pilgrim as having a clear stance towards the other pilgrims. For example, Lawton notes at the bottom of page 932 that Chaucer's pilgrim, while "deploring" the Miller's indelicacy of language, held "ungrudging admiration" for his efficient theivery. I tried to substantiate his claim. However, apart from the word "jangler" (560) - which is itself ambiguous as it could be stated spitefully or matter-of-factly - I could not find any other potential evidence of Chaucer censuring the Miller. I did not get the sense that Chaucer's pilgrim admired the Miller's thievery either. The line "Wel koude he stelen corn and a tollen thries" (562) could be spoken admiringly, bitterly or in a neutral manner. Chaucer the pilgrim's tone and opinions are obscure and dubious and may well be opaque to us at this stage.

Lawton writes: “The concept of persona was probably salutary when it first appeared in Chaucer criticism, for it helped correct an unliterary emphasis on ‘what Chaucer thought.’” The unliterary emphasis to which he refers appears in Donaldson’s essay: “Of course, all tritely approbative expressions enter easily into ironic connotation, but the phrase means a good companion, which is just what Chaucer means” (932). Donaldson thus claims to know Chaucer’s original intention. In other words, he presents as an absolute fact a notion of which he cannot be certain. This method of writing, of jumping to conclusions that cannot be established by textual evidence, appears several times in the essay. For instance, Donaldson writes: “[…] it must lead to a loss of critical perception, and in particular to a confused notion of Chaucerian irony, to see in the Prologue a reporter who is acutely aware of the significance of what he sees but who sometimes, for ironic emphasis, interprets the evidence presented by his observation in a fashion directly contrary to what we expect” (929). The narrator, he claims, is acutely unaware of the significance of what he sees. My issue with Donaldson’s argument here is that he has no substantial evidence of the narrator’s naïve nature. How does he know that the narrator is not aware of and deliberately hinting at the irony present in the portraits? 

I found Mann's assertion that the General Prologue actually casts the text in the style of estates literature to be very intriguing. Considering this Chaucer does seem to poke fun directly at the first estate, "those who pray." Not only are his clergy corrupt, "Men moote yeve silver to the povre freres / his typet was ay farsed ful of knyves." (232) but even the clerk, who seems genuine in his worship, is presented as poor, and emaciated. In this way Chaucer seems to be making a statement that goes beyond the first estate to religion in general.

Furthermore, Chaucer seems to employ less direct criticism with regards to others. In the case of the knight he reminds me a great deal of Chretien and Lancelot. The knight is presented with a cloying description of his positive qualities and a litany of his accomplishments. I am curious to see how Chaucer will use this somewhat 2-dimensional character.

General Prologue

I took note of the groupings that Chaucer unites in the general prologue. While most of the travelers on this journey are presented individually, Chaucer introduces ten of the characters together. I found these groupings interesting. The first group, Haberdasshere, Carpenter, Webbe, Dyere and a Tapicer (361-362) all make tangible goods. (with the exception of the Haberdasshere who sells tangible goods so the others may make them into other things.) The second grouping is a rather different sort.  A Reve, a MIllere, a Somnour, a Pardoner, a Maunciple, and the narrator himself. None of these professions produce anything tangible. These professions manage, collect or sell goods.  These professions are also employed by a ruling party, either a lord or the clergy. (again one exception, the Miller.) Curiously, the narrator places himself among this group. Is this self-deprecation on the part of Chaucer or is  he intoning that the act of writing is merely a profession meant to serve and please the privileged of a society?

The Prologue

While reading, I tried to interpret what the purpose of the Prologue could be. My intuition that the Prologue focussed mainly on setting up stereotypes of various class occupations was confirmed by Mann's elucidation on how Chaucer's use of professional jargon "contributes little to our sense of the individual psychology of the pilgrims, but a great deal to our sense of their working lives"(12). I wonder what Chaucer intends to achieve through this setup: Does he intend to construct these stereotypes (such as the knight's nobility, the shipman's ruthlessness, etc) in order to destroy them later? Or does he intend to prepare us for his perspective on why people of different occupations conform to different moulds of personality? I believe that further study of the Tales illuminate his motives more clearly for us.

I actually had a lot of fun reading the General Prologue in the Middle English. Although it was difficult and at times undecipherable, somehow the Middle English brought out more of the texture and wit in Chaucer’s writing. His rhymes gave a regular swing and punch to his lines which often served as a platform for a humorous jab; I could almost hear the rise and fall of his voice and the comical emphasis as he explained that “hir over-lippe she wiped so clene/ that in hir coppe ther was no ferthying sene.” Ostensibly he is praising her etiquette, yet the tone facilitated by the rhyme structure, by the somewhat disturbing rapaciousness implied by the absence of even a “ferthying,” even by the word “over-lip,” which seems to hint at appetite and its concealment, alerts us to the irony embedded in his treatment.

Like Christen, I noticed that his treatment of some characters seemed to be much less critical and even approving. The clerk, parson, and plowman stood out to me amongst the sea of other extremely flawed characters. Perhaps I missed the subtlety of Chaucer’s critique of these characters, but, in contrast to the others, they seemed superior, at least with respect to morality and avoiding hypocrisy. I couldn’t figure out what Chaucer might be trying to say with such an arrangement; are clerks, parsons, and plowmen more naturally inclined to honesty and moral goodness than others? Are they random choices because who is good among humanity has less to do with their class and position in life than their individual character? Or is it perhaps because each of them represents one of the lowest members of the hierarchy in their respective estates, and the less privileged are less inclined to corruption? Or he is in fact criticizing their naiveté, or lack of ambition, or some other flaw, hiding it under a veil of approval as he does with each of his other characters?

Chaucer's Narration

Characteristic of Chaucer's work, the narrator of the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is quite intriguing. Although we learn "Th'estaat, th'array, the nombre, and eek the cause" (716) of a number of characters in the prologue, we get no description of the narrator himself-- all we know for sure is that he is a pilgrim on his way to Canterbury. The conclusion of the General Prologue, from lines 715 to the end, is perhaps the most illuminating part. From lines 725 to 746, the narrator begs the reader not to judge him for the coarseness of the tales he tells, for he is simply retelling the tales of others as he heard them. He says directly to the reader, "For this ye knowen also wel as I, / Whoso shal telle a tale after a man, / He moot reherce as neigh as evere he kan / Everich a word, if it be in his charge..." (730-4). This request is yet another example of Chaucer's incredible shrewdness, as well as his distancing technique between himself (the author), the pilgrim (the narrator), and the content (the tales). In that one line ("For this ye known also wel as I"), not only does he frame the bawdy tales he is about to tell in the mouths of others, excusing himself from taking any responsibility, but he even implies to that the reader must know that it's only right for him to be excused, because the truth must be spoken. He makes his lack of responsibility for his "vileynye" (726) even more irrefutable by invoking the wisdom of Plato: "Eek Plato seith, whoso kan hym rede, / The wordes moote be cosyn to the dede" (741-2). Clearly, this is Chaucer at his very best (or most sly): not only does he distance the content of his poetry from himself (as he has done in so many of his earlier works), but he even tricks the reader into thinking it is permissible and even necessary for him to tell such raunchy tales.

I appreciated Mann's description of Chaucer as "commend[ing] the lecher, not for chastity, but for lechery- to enthuse, in fact, over his being the most lecherous lecher of all," yet I still had a difficult time gauging irony in the Prologue. For instance, Chaucer drops a snide comment about the Pardoner's sexuality ("I trowe he were a gelding or a mayre" 691) and the portrait of the Pardoner is generally quite scathing. Yet in a way, I feel on more even footing with Chaucer there; it's when he gives seemingly innocent, positive descriptions that I'm most wary. Chaucer praises the Squire in all respects, but there also seems something decidedly effeminate about him: "Embrouded was he, as if it were a meede/al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and reede" (90) "with lokkes crulle as they were leyyd in presse" (81). Is he being tongue in cheek, or genuinely approving?

I found it very difficult to decipher Chaucer’s tone based on the Middle English version of the General Prologue. Having to focus on the meaning of individual words, I failed to notice the tonal aspects of the text. The depiction of the Prioress, however, brought the tone back into focus for me: “But for to speken of hir conscience/ She was so charitable, and so pitous/ She wolde wepe if that she sawe a mous/ Caught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde/ Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde/ With roasted flessh […]” (8). The Prioress cries over a dead mouse, but gives no thought to the animal that must be killed in order to serve as food for her hounds. This discovery of irony inspired me to read the entire depiction again, and upon re-inspection, I discovered another passage that hints at an ironic attitude toward the Prioress: “At mete wel ytaught was she withalle/ She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle/ Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe/ Wel koude she carye a morsel and wel kepe/ That no drope ne fille upon hir brest/ In curteisye was set ful muche hir lest/ Hir over-lippe wiped she so clene/ That in hir coppe ther was no ferthing sene/ Of grece, whan she drunken hadde hir draughte/ Ful semely after hir mete she raughte” (7). The prioress’s behavior in this passage may just appear as a form of good etiquette. But the description illustrates that she knows how to keep her exterior clean while consuming food. The depiction of her eating habits may therefore function as a metaphor, hinting at her concern for exterior rather than interior cleanliness. Her portrait thus foreshadows the more overt hypocrisy of the religious figures that appear later in the prologue. 

In The Legend of Good Women, Chaucer omits the horrific details of Medea’s story, depicting her as an innocent victim of male betrayal: “This is the payment and reward that Medea received from Jason, even for her fidelity and kindness, as she loved him better than herself, I believe…” (16). In the Heroides, on the other hand, Ovid does not hide Medea’s crimes. And yet, Ovid’s depiction appears, on some level, more sympathetic than that of Chaucer. I believe this unlikely sympathy arises from Ovid’s emphasis on interiority. He reveals Medea’s psychological processes, in a sense, thus drawing the reader into the character’s mind and facilitating a form of identification. 

Medea's lament

Having read the Verducci last, I found myself moved by Medea's calling out for Jason's mercy and return.  The prose was so beautifully written and so seamlessly moved Medea from a scorned woman set on vengeance to a wounded and forlorn mate longing for another chance. 

 "Let her smile. Let my vices furnish her joy....no enemy to Medea lives unavenged...but if there is any hope that prayers can touch a heart of steel, listen now to what I say, to words far more than matched by what I can dare...I do not hesitate to cast myself at your feet." (170-187)

There is this kinetic energy that moves the final stanzas and moves us full circle back into Medea again enraged. "Rage is at pains to deliver its monstrous message. Where rage leads me, I shall go."(210) It is at the very end of this that I find the interesting distinction between the two translations.  The Verducci: "But leave that to the God who even now pilots my heart.

My mind labors, it is clear, toward some obscure enormity." (212)

The Showerman on the other hand is full of rage and fury. Medea's cries for her husband are impassioned, but they seem to stem from a place of anger, where Verducci's seem to stem from a place of sadness.  And the end, Showerman's final lines: Be that the concern of the god who embroils my heart! Something portentous surely, is working in my soul!" 

There is a reconciliation in Verducci's that's not present in Showerman's. And that variation in tone changes the very way that we view the character.  

Note: I'm not sure this post is indicative of anything in particular other than a reaction I had to the piece.  

Ovid's Hypsipyle

Ovid clearly spends more time than Chaucer in developing the characters of Medea and Hypsipyle. They are portrayed as more complex and realistic figures who grapple with choices of what to do about Jason's betrayals. For example Ovid's emphasises Hypsipyle's possessive and vengeful reactions to the betrayal - she wonders if she should continue maintaining her vows only to have Medea enjoy them (c.f. 75), and wishes to "dash [her] face with Medea's blood" (81) - while Chaucer glosses over this, simply stating that "she sent him a letter, which would be too long to write and tell" (15).

Ovid, Verducci and Chaucer

I was reviewing the Ovid and Verducci in comparison to Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and trying to pinpoint why the former two were so much more effective for me; I think the reason, in part, comes down to the utilization of sex and gender. The Chaucer piece seems much more acutely conscious of gender: Jason is “coy as a maiden” as he deceives, “look[ing] piteously and sa[ying] nothing” (Chaucer 15) and women are “high-born […] tender creatures.” (Chaucer 13) The narrator is constantly taking characters’ gender temperature: later, Jason is “a proper and lordly man, and had great renown, […] regal as a lion in his demeanor, and pleasant and courteous in his speech.” (Chaucer 15) Hypsipyle is frequently referred to as “this lady” or “my lady,” rather than by name, so that the first things that come to mind when seeing her name are the reader’s class/gender preconceptions rather than, perhaps, the actions of Hypsipyle herself.

Reading the pieces in conjunction with one another, it’s definitely harder to dismiss Legend of Good Women’s misogynistic tendencies. Chaucer’s string of exclamation marks in the opening paragraph of the Hypsipyle and Medea legend prefaces the women’s tale with shrill absurdity. In contrast, there is a restraint to both Ovid’s and Verducci’s opening lines. Obviously sex and power loom large in all of these pieces, but Ovid and Verducci seem to employ it more subtly. The first person narrative helps with this, I think, as do touches like Hypsipyle’s concern for her children with her stepmother; there seems to be a wider web of character references, so that it isn’t simply a tale of male-female x-done-wrong.

The Written Word

The distinction between the spoken and written word really stood out to me in reading Ovid, most evident in Hypsipyle's letter to Jason. From the very beginning, the first grievance she mentions is not that he abandoned her for another woman, but rather that she was informed of his fate by a "Thessalian stranger" (line 23) and not by "message of your [Jason's] own" (Showerman, line 4). Not only does she state that she "was entitled to the courtesy of a personal note from your hand" (Verducci, line 8; or "deserved the sending of a greeting" in Showerman), but that a letter should have been written "however adverse the winds" (Verducci, line 7). Instead, she was informed through a "vulgar rumor" (Verducci, line 9) and not "lines from your hand" (Showerman, line 9; or "a letter" in Verducci).

In fact, she complains about the mode of her reception of his fate for the first two stanzas before even giving mention to Medea. Before bringing up the fact that Jason abandoned her on an island, never to return, and took a new wife in marriage, she feels it more important to tell him that she would've really liked to have been informed through a letter from him because she could then be "proud" (Showerman, line 16; or perhaps a stranger adjective to describe it, "awesome" in Verducci) of his conquests and tell unbelievers that "'He has written me this with his own hand'" (Showerman, line 16; or "'That is exactly what Jason wrote'" in Verducci). Aside from the fact that it seems pathetic that she could take pride in his accomplishments after what Jason did to her, it is strange that she would begin with this complaint (as opposed to his abandonment of his wife and children).

Note: I drew from both the Showerman and Verducci translations, citing each but including both where appropriate. Where neither is cited, they have identical translations.