Chaucer and the Energy of Creation: The Design and the Organization of the 'Canterbury Tales' by Edward I. Condren (review)

Abstract

YES, 32, 2002 YES, 32, 2002 Petrarchas poets of chaste love is brieflymentioned, there is a great deal more to say about their influence and that of neo-Platonism in the iconography of the virginalmistressin both medieval and Renaissance literature. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to observe, as the editors do in their introduction, that 'depictionsof virginityin the Middle Ages and Renaissance aregendered- or coded -as female', and to examine, as does Kathleen Coyne Kelly in her own essay on Malory's MorteDarthur, the very complex and blurred iconographies that come into play when masculine virtue is at issue. Both here and in the collection as a whole thereis much to stimulatefurtherthought. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON HELEN HACKETT Chaucer andtheEnergy ofCreation. TheDesignandtheOrganization ofthe'Canterbury Tales'. By EDWARDI. CONDREN. Gainesville, Tallahassee, and Tampa: University Press of Florida. I999. viii + 295 PP. $49.95. EdwardCondren'sstudyof the structureof TheCanterbury Tales is sound inprinciple, butproducesconvincing resultsonly in respectof FragmentI. Here he demonstrates a pattern of 'increasing degradation' (p. 25) supported by suggestive evidence of numericalcomposition binding the four tales in a manner much like that brilliantly exploited in SirThopas. This demonstrationis reinforcedby a perceptive discussion ofjustice in the Knight's Talein relation to the personal fortunesand moral worth of Palamon and Arcite (pp. 30-3I), combined with a subtle use of heraldic detail to show that the two are 'not merely similar, but actually identical' (p. 33). But it is hard to see such clarity of structure in The Canterbuy Talesas a whole, and the diagrammatic representations of that structure scattered throughout the book prompt bewilderment more often than ready assent. The effect of a large-scale comparison with Dante's Commedia (in part and in whole) reminds us ratherof the contrastbetween a finishedand an unfinishedworkof art.Virgil'sexposition of love in Purgatorio, XVIIis undoubtedly at the centre of the Commedia, but it is far from evident that the Merchant's Taleis similarlyat the centre of Chaucer's great work. Indeed, there is a lack of proportion, morallyand imaginatively,in the correspondence proposed between January and Dante personaggio. The fact that Dante is a source of poetic inspirationfor Chaucer leads one to question imprecise analogies of this kind, and also to hesitate before describingspecific allusionsto Dante (even in the mouth of the Franklin)as 'floweryexcesses'(p. I56). The main theoretical objection to this study lies in its imputed primacy of teller to tale, and especially to the over-enthusiasticreception of the Donaldsonian view of the Narrator(privilegedby capitalization).Charactersare seen not merely as the instrumentsof Chaucer's art, but as poets in their own right. Thus the Knight has 'crafted' his 'long tale' (p. 50), Arveragus is the creation of a 'Franklincreator' (p. 163)and the 'rioters'of'their Pardoner-creator'(p. I83). Moreover, the notion of a fallible narratoris pressed to extreme lengths. The Merchant intends 'to tell one kind of tale', but 'unwittinglytells another', while the Squire and the Franklin 'are beyond their depth' (p. 125). The Prioress 'fails to comprehend either the horror or the meaning of her own story' (p. 219), and Harry Bailly 'has missed the main point of Melibee' (p. 229). Even the Clerk,thatgreat studentof Aristotle,in his own telling 'perhaps [.. .] does not understand the revisions Chaucer made to Petrarch'sversion' (p. 124).Above all our Narratorhimself is a man of'wide-eyed credulity' (p. 185) and the 'least knowledgeable' (p. I90) of them all. The Canterburypilgrims must rank as the dimmest group ever to set foot on the road from Southwark. Petrarchas poets of chaste love is brieflymentioned, there is a great deal more to say about their influence and that of neo-Platonism in the iconography of the virginalmistressin both medieval and Renaissance literature. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to observe, as the editors do in their introduction, that 'depictionsof virginityin the Middle Ages and Renaissance aregendered- or coded -as female', and to examine, as does Kathleen Coyne Kelly in her own essay on Malory's MorteDarthur, the very complex and blurred iconographies that come into play when masculine virtue is at issue. Both here and in the collection as a whole thereis much to stimulatefurtherthought. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON HELEN HACKETT Chaucer andtheEnergy ofCreation. TheDesignandtheOrganization ofthe'Canterbury...