The Clerk’s “Gentil Tale” Heard Again

Abstract

T H E C L E R K ’ S “ G E N T I L T A L E ” H E A R D A G A IN M ARJORIE E. SW A N N H a r r y Bailly, for one, finds the meaning of the Clerk’s Tale obvious and satisfying. In Harry’s opinion, the agreeably didactic story of Griselda and Walter provides an example of marital obedience which should be followed by all wives — especially by Mrs. Hany Bailly: “ ‘By Goddes bones, / Me were levere than a barel ale / My wyf at hoom had herd this legende ones!’ ” * The Clerk had attempted to forestall such an interpretation of his tale but Harry, it seems, has turned a deaf ear to the Cleric’s insistence that “This storie is seyd, nat for that wyves sholde / Folwen Grisilde as in humylitee” (IV. 1 142-43). Another of the Canterbury pilgrims also does not share Harry’s confident assessment of the tale. The Merchant, assuming that the Clerk had intended to describe a foolproof method of attaining married bliss, feels the story provides instead a recipe for disaster. To answer the Clerk, the Merchant depicts another Italian nobleman who, like Walter in the Clerk’s Tale, insists on selecting as his wife a local girl attractive to him for “hir gentillesse” and “hire sadnesse” (IV.1603, 1604). Through the story of January’s deception, the Merchant tries to rebut the message he gleaned from the Clerk’s narrative.2 The Merchant’s Tale dramatizes his contention that because women are not like Griselda, “ ‘We wedded men lyven in sorwe and care’ ” (IV. 1228). As the Merchant has heard it, the Clerk’s Tale is an entirely unsatisfactory piece of story-telling. Like the Merchant, modern critics also have not come to terms with the tale as readily as Harry Bailly. A twentieth-century audience “hearing” the Clerk’s Tale finds it difficult to make sense of the combination of allegory and realism which informs the story. Critics deal with this problem in vari­ ous ways. Some choose to emphasize the allegorical aspects of the tale, and either ignore or downplay its realism, sharing F. N. Robinson’s opinion that, “Judged by the standards of realistic fiction, the action is preposterous.” 3 Others choose to view it with a stress on a non-allegorical meaning. The nonallegorical interpretations vary widely, ranging from Norman Lavers’ psycho­ analytic approach — which assumes that both Griselda and Walter suffer E n g l is h S t u d ie s in C a n a d a , x iii, 2, June 1987 “some psychic disorder” 4— to James Dean’s contention that the Clerk engages in nostalgic yearning for a past “Golden Age.” 5 Interestingly, many critics, in their quest to explicate the “meaning” of the Clerk’s Tale, overlook the role of the Clerk himself as teller of this story. Elizabeth Salter, in noting the contradictory presence of both allegory and realism in the tale, remarks that “it is interesting that Chaucer does not seem to recognize the problem he sets himself and his readers by attempting to juxtapose, rather than to relate, both perspectives upon the narrative.” 6 Salter does not examine the possibility that it is not Chaucer, but Chaucer’s Clerk who creates this “problem.” As we approach the Clerk’s Tale, we should remind ourselves that we are not just reading a story written by Chaucer; rather, we are hearing a narrative as it is related by the Clerk. In his article “The Art of Impersonation: A General Prologue to the Canter­ bury Tales,” H. Marshall Leicester, Jr., maintains “that the Canterbury tales are individually voiced, and radically so — that each of the tales is primarily an expression of its teller’s personality and outlook as embodied in the unfolding ‘now’ of the telling.” 7 Leicester’s focus on individual voic­ ing may helpfully be applied to the Clerk’s Tale. Seen in this light, the story presents not an interpretational “problem,” but rather the dramatic un­ folding of a learning process and the revelation of the Clerk’s own character — a revelation which enhances the discussion...