The Rhetorical Construction of Narrator and Narrative in Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess

Abstract

The Book of the Duchess is Chaucer's poetic response to a problem that con fronted the young poet following the death of his patron's wife, Blanche of Lancaster, in September of 1368.1 Faced with the task of comforting her grieving husband, yet unable to assume the appearance of superior emotional wisdom that would allow him to do so directly, Chaucer must work obliquely. By shrewdly manipulating the narrative persona he inher ited from the French love-vision, Chaucer creates a suitably flattering memorialization of Blanche and of Gaunt's love for her. The strength and creativity of this use of character suggest a reading of the poem princi pally in terms of its psychological drama, from the Narrator's obtuseness in the beginning of the poem to his vexed attempts at communication with the Black Knight in the central dialogue. Such an approach, how ever, ignores the structural complexity that underlies two of the poem's most controversial moments: the conclusion of the tale of Seys and Alcyone at the beginning, and the conclusion of the dialogue at the end. I will argue that although the psychological drama of character often seems to dominate the poem, this drama depends critically upon an underlying, structural drama: that of the chiastic pattern of contrasting rhetorical styles that links the tale of Alcyone with the denouement of the central dialogue. Only by examining these two aspects of the poem together can we appreciate the full emotional force of the work's con clusion, in which both are resolved in the space of a single climactic couplet. Chaucer's manipulations of his French and Latin sources at the begin ning of the Book of the Duchess first register the poem's distinctive use of both character and structure. D. S. Brewer, comparing the opening lines of Chaucer's poem to those of Froissart's Paradys d'amour, suggests that in contrast to Froissart's sober, well-languaged, flat opening lines, Chaucer's are lively, conversational, emphatic, dramatic.2 Since Chaucer