The Pardoner's Tale and Dominican Meditation

Abstract

Chaucer's Pardoner is a self-inventor, and in the pages to follow I want to explore the religious implications of his self-invention. So in order to avoid misunderstanding I must emphasize from the very beginning that I shall be examining him not as an allegorical figure, that is, not as an abstract of vices (or virtues), of reprobation (or election), or of any theological value. Nor will I examine him as a type. Rather, I shall be seeing him as a dramatic figure doing something about himself (inventing himself) in a social context fraught with devotional and ascetic possibilities peculiar to Chaucer's age. These possibilities embrace not only the century-old French 'device' of surprising the living man with a walking figure of death, but also the Dominican Friars' far newer and subtler death-dialogue. This latter requires the exercitant to invent his own death figure from within--in some versions as an admonisher, in others as an intimate double. The psychological ambiguities at the point of intersection show up in the Pardoner's polyvalent relationships to his audience, to his own aliases, and to his characters.