Chaucer, Arguing “in good feyth”

Abstract

ABSTRACT As translator of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, Chaucer encountered a platonic conception of the compelling argument: one's reason must consent to a properly argued truth. In almost none of his narratives, however, does Chaucer represent much confidence that dialectic alone offers a compelling method of persuasion. Rather, the inability to change another person's mind or mood is most often dramatized as (one-sided) debates between men and women which finally prove to be only exercises in rhetorical futility. The legitimacy of Chaucer's lack of faith in objective, compelling argumentation is likewise (somewhat ironically) evidenced by the very contentiousness of much Chaucerian criticism. Indeed, much post-structuralist and feminist criticism of Chaucer questions the very concept of “objectivity.” Though Chaucer did not fully despair of translating his authorial intent to future readers, he did anticipate that achieving the consent of future readers to any would-be “definitive” interpretation of his texts would depend as much upon each reader’s predisposition—that is, good faith—as upon the rational effort to extract compelling facts from “the text itself.”