Chaucer's Poetry Research Articles

Difference and the Difference it Makes: Sex and Gender in Chaucer's Poetry

“My indecision is final,” the movie magnate Sam Goldwyn is reported to have said, and I find the malapropism suitably expressive of Chaucer’s attitude toward sexual difference. My concern is not simply to decide whether Chaucer was or was not “woman’s friend” (as the Scots poet Gavin Douglas put it in the early sixteenth century), but to look at the systems within which a late-mediaeval courtly writer was permitted to be woman’s friend, and the systems within which he was not so permitted. My argument will be that Chaucer both “is and is not” the friend of woman. Some of you will recognize the phrase I borrow from Salman Rushdie, who in turn borrows it from ancient Arabic storytelling. I use it in order to articulate the deep-rooted ambivalence about women that is a structural feature of latemediaeval culture, providing a terminus ad quem beyond which even the most well-intentioned writer cannot pass.

Gender and Language in Chaucer by Catherine S. Cox

REVIEWS CATHERINE S. Cox, Gender and Language in Chaucer. Gainesville: Uni­ versity of Florida Press, 1997. Pp. x, 196. $49.95. Despite a plethora of intelligent guides, the maze of text and gender in Chaucer's work has yielded few clear pathways and even fewer satisfying destinations. We are often led in one direction by the author's erudition and by his vocation as translator and in quite another by the extraordi­ nary modernity (or so it seems to us) of the gendered-that is, human­ relationships he creates as a makyr of vernacular poetry. In Gender and Language in Chaucer, Catherine Cox sets out to explore the maze by delin­ eating the roles text and gender play in the construction of subjectivity and in the articulation of a merapoetics through a variety of Chaucer's texts. She identifies as particular concerns the "en/gendering" of a text's internal epistemologies and the self-reflexive nature of much of Chau­ cer's poetic (p. 5). More broadly, Cox argues that in medieval texts, Medieval Woman is not only the carnal or only the passive, or submissive, or whatever; complex and multiple, often contradictory and paradoxical, Woman is representative textually not only of the carnal ...but also of the potential multiplicity of meaning that gives rise to the polysemy necessary for language to transcend literal constraints.Woman may be understood to represent not only the body of the text ...but also its figurative capacity to generate and articulate meaning; Woman corresponds to both form and process.(p.12) Cox argues that Chaucer exploits these representational potentialities through "complex and reflexive tropes" that point to the role of the "feminine" in epistemology and hermeneutics (p. 12). Cox also sees the feminine in Chaucer as enabling a violation of the decorums inherited from the very canonical texts the author relies upon as sources: ...the feminine translatio inscribes the capacity ofsignification to challenge­ or violate-proper decorum in order that multiple senses (poly/mne) obtain.The feminine signa, as improper, are frequently articulated in conjunction with sex­ ual metaphors since the unlimited sense of the epistemological feminine is, in effect, promiscuous (prolmiscere. mixed, confused, indiscriminate), for signa translata resist constraint and challenge masculine insistence on ordered deco­ rum.(p.13) 335 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Cox has read widely in both postmodern theory (with a particular debt acknowledged to Carolyn Dinshaw) and in patristic literature. Bringing these two discourses to bear on Chaucer's poetry yields some intriguing analyses of the "inextricable coincidence of flesh and text" (p. 120). However, this reader found herself longing for a clearer articulation of those conclusions. Although there is not space here to work through each chapter of Gender andLanguage in Chaucer, a brief discussion of chapters on the Wife of Bath, Troilus and Criseyde, and the Retraction will point to the volume's strengths and weaknesses. After the introduction, Cox begins, appropri­ ately enough, with a study of the Wife as glossator, arguing, as others have done before, that the erotic play of language takes precedence for the Wife over the sexual act itself-that the text is sexualized just as much as it textualizes sex (p. 26). Cox emphasizes the issue of control over bodily and textual fertility, arguing that in her perpetuation of the patriarchal binary, virginity/promiscuity, and in her insistence on pri­ vate, internal discourse, the Wife is, ironically, "revirginizing" language even as her own polysemous language resists that control. This concern with the codification of virginity and its textual permutations resurfaces in chapter 3 as Cox argues that the tales of suffering virgins, in The Legend ofGood Women, The Physician'.r Tale, The Second Nun'.r Tale. and else­ where, are also tales of virgin texts: that is, texts circumscribed, con­ strained, and barren (pp. 63-64). Cox's reading of the Wife is nuanced and complex. She does not suc­ cumb to the simplistic notion that the fecundity of the Wife's Prologue and the portrayal of feminine power in the Tale render them feminist texts. In this reading, usurpation and transference are crucial to the Wife's appropriation of language for pleasure and public display, and yet she...

THE CONCEPT OF TEXTUAL UNITY IN CHAUCER’S DREAM–VISIONS

This paper stems from a dilemma that I encountered in an attempt to define the notion of beginning in Chaucer's dream-vision poetry. I found, as I believe others before me have found, that the Aristotelian concept of a 'beginning-middle-end' in narrative is not totally applicable to the dream-vision. Due to the manner in which the text appears to 're-begin' through the introduction of apparently unrelated digressive episodes or narratorial interruption, the traditional idea of narrative struct ure, which is satisfactory for epic narrative or fiction of the realist vein, does not succeed in fully explaining the problems of unity one confronts in the dreamvision. These poems also fail to resolve the issues that are raised within their parameters, a characteristic which one expects in the idea of an 'ending'. One can say that these works conclude rather than end. Therefore, traditional notions of structure must be reeval uated in an analysis of dream-vision poetry.

“Voice Memorial”: Loss and Reparation in Chaucer's Poetry

(1990). “Voice Memorial”: Loss and Reparation in Chaucer's Poetry. Exemplaria: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 169-202.

“Voice Memorial”: Loss and Reparation in Chaucer's Poetry

“Voice Memorial”: Loss and Reparation in Chaucer's Poetry

God’s Plenty: Chaucer’s Christian Humanism by Ruth M. Ames

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER erance. Aers believes that The Parsons Tale (particularly because ofits views on marriage) should be read as a critical treatment of the Parson. He is sympathetic to the plight ofMay in The Merchant's Tale: "The text .. .never encourages any conventional moral judgments against May as it depicts her desperateattempt to alleviate hersubjection to thislegalizedrape [i.e., her marriage] by turning to Damyan" (p. 73). One might object that the text tells us nothing about her being forced to marryJanuary and gives her few, ifany, redeeming qualities. Aers sees Troilus and Criseyde as "a marvelous celebration of sexual love and gratification" and, like a number of other scholars, finds the epilogue unsatisfactory; he feels, in fact, that "the poem as a whole encourages us to reject [the epilogue's] generalised incantations and moralistic cliches" (p. 101). According to the publisher, this book is "especially designed for those relatively new" to Chaucer's work. Although, as I remark in my opening paragraph, there is much in this book that is of value, there is also, as I indicate above, much that is questionable. For this reason the book will be best taken upby those who have been reading Chaucerfor some time rather than by those who are relatively new to Chaucer's work. Some will find Aers's arguments convincing; others will not. Aers expresses hope in his opening paragraph that his book will "stimulate discussion of Chaucer's poetry." It will certainly do that. EDWARD DONALD KENNEDY University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill RUTH M. AMEs. God's Plenty: Chaucer's Christian Humanism. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1984. Pp. xii, 269. $12.95. When the Miller alludes to God's plenty, he means that a husband should enjoy his wife's favors and not ask questions about her behavior when he is not by; when Dryden alludes to it, he means that Chaucer's gallery of characters is a rich and varied one, and that reading about them is a joyous and mind-expanding experience. Ruth M. Ames has another use for the phrase: to stress that the plenty is indeed God's. Ifthe whole duty ofman is to know Godand enjoy himforever, what are "dirty stories" like The Millers Tale doing among the writings ofa Christian humanist-one so Christian, in fact, that he feels obliged in the end to retract many of them? 116 REVIEWS In a book which skates lightly and readably over most of Chaucer's work, with generous allusions to the writings of contemporaries and to books he probably read, Ames argues that there is no conflict between Chaucer's spiritual and aesthetic values. She writes for a nonspecialist audience, and especially for new students of Chaucer badly educated in the belief that the Middle Ages were dark with ignorance and sexual repression and who delightedly conclude, therefore, that mirthful, outspoken Chaucer must have been anything but an orthodox, straitlaced Catholic. What such students, no doubt thick as motes in the sunbeam, need to be shown, apparently, is that Chaucer's secular exuberance is compatible with his Christian humanism, that Chaucer's plenty is God's plenty, and not, for example, the Green Yeoman's. First comes a survey of Chaucer's life as Christian courtier and poet, indicating the breadth of his sympathies-he was friendly with Lollard and orthodox alike. Ignoring court scandals and the infamous accusation of "raptus," Ames speculates only that, since his wife was lady-in-waiting to the Spanish wife ofJohn of Gaunt, Chaucer may have talked to the queen about love, science, and religion. The next two chapters are devoted to religion, and the following two to love; the item in the trio that is shortchanged is science. Presumably the physical universe is an aspect of God's plenty, and Chaucer was always mildly satirical of the antiintellectual disinclination to inquire into "Goddes pryvetee." In fact the subtlety might have been pointed out, to illustrate Chaucer's irony, that the Miller who in his Prologue advocates enjoyment without inquiry, then tells a tale in which oldJohn is punished for refusing to inquire into both his wife's conduct and God's...

Virtue of Necessity: Inconclusiveness and Narrative Form in Chaucer's Poetry. Larry Sklute

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsVirtue of Necessity: Inconclusiveness and Narrative Form in Chaucer's Poetry. Larry Sklute Kenneth BleethKenneth Bleeth Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 62, Number 3Jul., 1987 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2846425 Copyright 1987 The Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Le Roman de Thèbes (The Story of Thebes) trans. by John Smartt Coley

I only wish to God that it were night, That night would last for ever and a day, And all these people here had gone away. REVIEWS (cf. MerTl762-64). Most often it is hard to see the point of the technique: A hard-up widow, getting on in age, Once on a time lived in a small cottage. (cf. NPT2821-22). It does not seem possible that one is intended to draw out the second syllable of cottage here to bring out the rhyme; but if not, what is achieved by eye rhyme on an unstressed syllable? I do not want to denigrate this translation, or its author. What has been done has been done conscientiously and worthily: the translations are careful and maintain a high level of accuracy, and there are times, especially in the comic tales, when one can take genuine pleasure in the translator's skill. My argument is simply that translation of Chaucer is not only unnecessary but undesirable, since it does, in the end, a disservice to Chaucer's poetry. DEREK PEARSALL University of York JOHN SMARTT COLEY, trans. Le Roman de Thebes (The Story ofThebes). Garland Library of Medieval Literature, vol. 44, Series B. New York and London: Garland, 1986. Pp. xliv, 240. $40.00. Along with the Roman de Troie and the Roman d'Eneas, the twelfth­ century French verse narrative known as the Roman de Thebes helped to convey the legends of classical antiquity to the later Middle Ages. Thebes begins with a brief retelling of the story of Oedipus and then focuses upon the dispute between the fated king's sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, who become embattled over the question of which of them should rule Thebes. As onewouldexpect, the poem reflects not only the ancient themeof a feud between brothers, but also various medieval preoccupations, including the nature of feudal loyalty and the conduct of love affairs. Chaucer may well have used Thebes (see, e.g., Trot/us and Criseyde, II.100) and the poem is important in its own right. Until the book under consideration here, no 203 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER modern English translation of the whole of Thebes seems to have been published. It must be said that Coley's decision to base his translation on the 1890 edition ofLeopold Constans (Le Roman de Thebes, Paris: SATF, 2 vols.) is disquieting. Constans, working according to the editorial conventions of his time, produced a reconstructed text that he regarded as capturing the lost "original" form ofthe poem. As Coley himselfdescribes it, Constans accomplished this goal "by selecting and bringing together (sometimes in different order) various passages and episodes from the various manuscripts and by adding, deleting, correcting, and changing lines on the basis ofhis conception of the twelfth-century original" (p. xviii). Constans' edition, therefore, is an editorial creation.Modern editors, workingnearly a century later and following the conventions of our own time, have shown an increasing preference for establishing a text according to one specific manuscript, achieving by this method an undeniable authority: such an edition is authenticated by its manuscriptforebear, despite whatever flaws that forebear might contain. (Even its mistakes are genuine, i.e., medieval, ones.) The Variorum Chaucer project, for instance, exemplifies this principle by choosing the Hengwrt manuscript as its basis for The Canter­ bury Tales, rather than trying to editorially reconstruct an "original" Chaucer text. Given this evolution of editorial expectations, one regrets Coley's re­ liance upon Constans-especially in view ofthe fact that a good modern edition of the oldest complete Thebes manuscript, MS C, was known to Coley (Le Roman de Thebes, ed. Guy Raynaud de Lage, Paris: CFMA, 1966-1967, 2 vols.).A partial edition ofthis manuscript was also known to him (A CriticalEdition ofthe "Roman de Thebes, "Lines 1-5394, ed. Dana PhelpsRipley, AnnArbor: University Microfilms, 1960).An explanation of Coley'schoice ofConstans may perhaps lie in the fact that, as he explains, the first half of his translation had been submitted as part of his Ph.D. requirements in 1965 (p. xlii). This would have taken place just before the edition by Raynaud de Lage appeared. It is understandable that in 1965 Coley was...

Virtue of Necessity: Inconclusiveness and Narrative Form in Chaucer's Poetry.

Other| March 01 1986 Virtue of Necessity: Inconclusiveness and Narrative Form in Chaucer's Poetry. SKLUTE LARRY. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984. vii + 160 pp. $22.00, cloth; $10.95, paper. JAMES DEAN JAMES DEAN Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Modern Language Quarterly (1986) 47 (1): 66–68. https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-47-1-66 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation JAMES DEAN; Virtue of Necessity: Inconclusiveness and Narrative Form in Chaucer's Poetry.. Modern Language Quarterly 1 March 1986; 47 (1): 66–68. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-47-1-66 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsModern Language Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1986 by Duke University Press1986 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Reviews You do not currently have access to this content.

Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry

Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry presents the work of nine distinguished Chaucer scholars inspired by the work of D. W. Robertson Jr., whose seminal 1969 study Preface to Chaucer has exerted wide influence in medieval studies and sparked new interest in the literary iconography of Middle English.

Chaucer and Dante: A Revaluation by Howard H. Schless

REVIEWS many students.Althoughthe information it contains is accurate enough, it is presented in a way which many students in England and America may find difficult to employ.No concessions are made to students of a more literary inclination, and they will probably react by not using it. N.F.BLAKE University of Sheffield HOWARD H. SCHLESS. Chaucer and Dante: A Revaluation. Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1984.Pp.xiv, 268.$85.0 0. In ChaucerandDante Howard H.Schiess aims to provide a revaluation of Chaucer's indebtedness to Dante by considering the "vast majority...of posited ascriptions...in terms of their strongest argument for inclusion" (p.ix).Following an introductory chapter which considers aspects of the Chaucer-Dante relationship within its European setting, Schiess examines supposedDantean influence within specific Chaucerian texts.Each chapter opens with some general remarks on Chaucer's borrowings before proceed­ ing to a detailed analysis of each posited ascription. Each ascription is scrupulously accredited to the critic who has advanced "the strongest argument for inclusion"; each such argument is then analysed in detail, often at considerable length.Schiess juxtaposes the Chaucerian text under investigation with its supposed Dantean source and provides standard modern translations of Italian and Latin passages. The great majority of ascriptions derive (Schiess freely admits) from the doctoral dissertation of ]. P. Bethel, "The Influence of Dante on Chaucer's Thought and Ex­ pression" (Harvard University, 1927). At first glance it seems that Schless's method is a direct continuation of the kind ofsourcestudypracticedby Chauceriansin the first twodecadesof this century-critics such as H.M.Cummings,].L.Lowes,].S.P.Tatlock, and Karl Young. But although he is evidently fond of such pioneers, Schiess is acutely aware ofthe limits and defects oftheir methods and ofthe methods he has adapted from them.His own project is, from first to last, hedged with qualifications and with acknowledgments ofits own inherent limitations. The chief limitation of positivistic source study is, I would argue, its tendency to treat the favored text as "live" and its source as "dead"; that is to say, attention is focused on the creative struggles of the 245 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER poet in the foreground (in this case Chaucer) and little attention is paid to the poet he is borrowing from (Dante). Such an imbalance of critical attention is, perhaps, inevitable, for if we bring the Dantean text to life, how can we then confine Virgil to the realm of mortapoesia? And so on. The quiescence of Dante in Chaucer andDante may, then, be seen as a methodological necessity. Schiess concentrates on Chaucer's "makynge" and maintains a discreet silence about Dante's creativity which doubtless aspires to be neutral. Judgments do creep in, however. For example, Schiess remarks that Chaucer, unlike Dante, "was not trying either to indoctrinate or to pass judgment," and he reminds us that we should not "expect to be able to impose Dante's fiercely held doctrine on Chaucer's poetry" (p. 150). Such comparisons tend to make Chaucer seem more homely and acceptable and Dante more alien and strange-more like (in the celebrated formulation of Horace Walpole) "a Methodist parson in Bedlam." The fact that a critic offers himself as an impartial judge of literary indebtedness does not, of course, guarantee impartiality. The account of the Chaucer-Boccaccio relationship offered by Cummings, for example, contains some spectacular distortions and omissions. Schiess is a generous and balanced critic; he judges each case on its merits, censures those critics (such as Lowes) he most admires, disagrees with some of his own past judgments, and does not bend the evidence to fit his own theories. At the same time Schiess implicitly recognizes that the kind of neutral stance that earlier critics purported to speak from is illusory, is itself a critical fiction, something which is a product of literary criticism rather than a precondi­ tion for it. In evaluating Chaucer's use of Dante, Schiess is not exempting himself from literary criticism but is, rather, practicing criticism within tightly defined limits of his own choosing. The limits within which Winthrop Wetherbee explores the Chaucer-Dante relationship in Chaucer and the Poets are more broadly defined. Wetherbee's...

Introduction to Chaucerian English by Arthur O. Sandved

REVIEWS Root for Troy/us and Manly-Rickert for The Canterbury Tales undertook to produce scientific texts according to principles which reduced editorial choicetoaminimum-withdisastrousresults, asthe essaysbyRalphHanna and George Kane make clear, although Root's annotations and Manly­ Rickert's collations still provide invaluable data for the study of Chaucer's poetry. George Kane'sessay raiseslarge questionsnotonlyabout Manlyand Rickert's application of the genetic method, but about the method itself. Implicit in his discussion is whether the method he and Talbot Donaldson applied to the construction of the text of Piers Plowman should now be applied to Chaucer. He adduces many examples of readings produced by Manly-Rickert's rescensions whose inferiority can be explained by scribal practice. The next step would be to produce a text according to these principles-another eclectic text, to be sure, but one whose choices were based on durior lectio and usus scnhendi rather than on lucidity and aesthetics. The Variorum Chaucer text of The Canterbury Tales is another application of the best text method, with Hengwrt as the copy text. Thus it will not represent a full application on the Kane-Donaldson method. The general effect of this splendid volume is to heighten our awareness of the progress of scholarship. "Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plus­ quam ipsi gigantes vident" (Didacus Stella in Lucan 10.2). In the absence of such a historical view we little know how much the lucid readings and crisp annotations in modern school texts like Cawley's or Fisher's stand upon the heroic accomplishments of their predecessors. The Variorum is the next attempt to create an omnium gatherum, but that, too, will be provisional, awaiting the computer generated or Kane-Donaldson gener­ ated editions of the future. If only the human mind can expand to comprehend all the data being placed before it! Chaucer would be amazed. JOHN H. FISHER University of Tennessee ARTHUR 0. SANDVED. Introduction to ChaucerianEnglish. Chaucer Stud­ ies 12. Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Dover, N.H.: Boydell and Brewer, 1985. Pp. X, 107. ,£22.50, $33.75. There has been a flurry of activity recently in books about Chaucer's language, which is very welcome after the neglect to which the subject was 241 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER relegated for so long. In 1985 we have this introduction by Sandved as well as a similar introduction in German by Udo Fries published by Niemeyer. It should be said at once that the title of Sandved's book is misleading. It deals only with the phonology and morphology of Chaucer's language, though that language is attested through the extant manuscripts. It may be for this reason that Sandved has used the adjective "Chaucerian," though it is likely to suggest to many readers that this book deals with the language of Chaucer's contemporaries as well as with Chaucer. Even the word "Intro­ duction" perhaps fails to acknowledge that the book is fairly comprehen­ sive in its coverage of the phonology and morphology. The book is then not so much an introduction to Chaucerian language as a brief description of Chaucer's phonology and morphology. This is an important point, for many who want an introduction to Chaucer's language might well acquire this book and be disappointed with it because of its limited coverage. A problem for anyone dealing with Chaucer's phonology and mor­ phology is what data to use. Sandved has chosen to rely on the second edition of Robinson, presumably because this edition is not only fairly complete but also widely used in universities in Europe and America. However, the edition is old-fashioned in its editorial policy, and it is now widely agreed that it often relies on manuscripts which are not the best. Robinson often interfered in the language of his manuscripts to make them represent what he thought Chaucer's language was; and since he often started from lessaccurate manuscripts like the Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, his interventions in the language of his authorities could make the resulting language rather different from Chaucer's. Increasingly studies on language, such as the articles by David Burnley, are being based on the manuscripts themselves, and recently Samuels...

Chaucer and Scriptural Tradition ed. by David Lyle Jeffrey

REVIEWS earth. Adams argues that "Langland's social and theological conservatism are such" that, in dealing with the profound problems of his age, his outlook is apocalyptic: "Only supernatural or preternatural intervention can totally reverse the hellbent course of human society" (p. 209). The essay refutes those readings that, following Morton Bloomfield's Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-Century Apocalypse (1961), discernJoachim of Fiore'sinfluence on the poem. It further shows that "Langland's Antichrist is, in fact, the final Antichrist of traditional Augustinian eschatology" (p. 205), an argument that I have made elsewhere and which can be bolstered further by Robert Lerner's recent analysis ofJoachim's multiple Antichrists [Speculum 60 (1985), 553-570]. Together with his earlier article on "The Nature of Need in Piers Plowman XX" [Traditio, 34 (1978), 273-301], Adams provides a coherent and persuasive analysis of the poem's concluding passus. His essay is, in my opinion, the best argued and probably the most significant of the collection, which is no small praise, because this handsome volume is packed with many excellent essays that will make an enduring contribution to Middle English studies. RICHARD K. EMMERSON Walla Walla College DAVID LYLEJEFFREY, ed. and comp. Chaucer and Scriptural Tradition. Ottawa: University ofOttawaPress, 1984.Pp. xvi, 242. $20.00 paper. Recent collections of essays by D. W. Robertson, Jr. (Essays in Medieval Culture [PrincetonUniversity Press, 1980]), and by Robertson and some of his students Uohn P. Hermann andJohnJ. Burke, eds. Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry [University: University of Alabama Press, 1981]) are reminders of the considerable influence Robertson has had on medieval studies over several decades. An impressive amount of current medieval scholarship is being produced by his students. And now comes a new volume, Chaucer and Scriptural Tradition, edited by DavidJeffrey, with a lead essay by Robertson, to whom the book is dedicated. Yet the dangers one might look for in the development ofsuch a school ofthought do not seem to have materialized. These essays have an unmistakable diversity, despite the fact that many of the contributors are "Robertsonians." It should be a matter ofgreat satisfaction to their mentor that his students not 203 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER only have become reputable scholars but also have developed an indi­ viduality of outlook that is as significant as their areas of agreement. Despite the tendency of the Chaucer bandwagon to attract predictable and repetitive studies, Chaucer and Scnptural Tradition is a refreshing departure from the norm. This is emphatically not just another collection of Chaucer articles. Its theme is the importance of the Bible for the study of Chaucer, and the twelve essays it contains bring new information to bear on this important subject in a variety of ways. Robertson's essay provides a context for the studies that follow; as such it serves a vital purpose, though it holds no real surprises for those familiar with his earlier work. Biblical rubrics announce the subsections of the essay, but Robertson's main concern is "to suggest that Chaucer's narratives would have been impossi­ ble without the traditions of patristic and scriptural teachings as they were adapted and elaborated to meet the needs of medieval life" (p. 32). It is easy to disagree with some of the sweeping "asides" in this essay (e.g., Robertson's comparison of The Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman, p. 30n.128), but the panoramic view he presents of church doctrine, its biblical dimension, and circumstances affecting the stability of late-medi­ eval life and society, provides an ideal background for the following studies. Chauncey Wood is interested in "artistic intention and Chaucer's uses of scriptural allusion" (pp. 35-46), but especially in what he calls "covert or implicit non-specific biblical allusions," where we have the feeling that Chaucer is alluding to a text but cannot be sure. Such uses Wood inge­ niously refers to as "the biblical 'quarks' ofhumanistic scholarship" (p. 36). The effect of such a phenomenon is that it "transforms the literary text by a kind of catalytic magic and adds spiritual meaning to what seems at first reading only physical description. Like the quark of modern physics, it is a hypothetical...

Roasting a Friar, Mis-taking a Wife, and Other Acts of Textual Harassment in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

Roasting a Friar, Mis-taking a Wife, and Other Acts ofTextual Harassment in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales R.W. Hanning Columbia University Q,ofthe most ,h,,acteci,:i,, and ,cmarkabl,, frarures ofChau­ cer's Canterbury Tales is its penchant for what can perhaps best be called textual harassment. The Canterbury pilgrims- and indeed the characters within their tales-harass texts almost as frequently, and enthusiastically, as they harass each other. That is, they misquote, quote out of context, misinterpret, vulgarize, and generally abuse textual "auctoritee." Various hypotheses can be advanced to explain this constant mistreatment of established wisdom. For example, StewartJustman has argued persuasively that Chaucer's habitual abuse ofauthority in his poetry accurately reflects a basic tension in medieval intellectual culture between an impulse to take absolutist, monistic positions (buttressed by inherited "auctoritees") and a need to restrain absolutism (by invoking the same, or equivalent, au­ thoritative texts) in the face of complex reality. Because Chaucer under­ stood this tension, Justman claims, "authority [in the CT] is there for the abusing, and receivedmaterials are... abundantlyliable to abuse."1 Or we can assume that the pilgrims' infidelities to the letter and spirit of textual authority dramatize Chaucer's recognition ofthe inevitable distortion that befalls written texts in a pre-print, only partly literate culture. (We recall the poet's evocation, in book 5 of Trozlus and Criseyde and in the verses to Adam Scriveyn, ofthe hazards his own works face in the process of scribal transmission.)2 1 StewartJustman, "Medieval Monism and Abuse ofAuthority in Chaucer," ChauR 11 (1976):95-111; the quotation is from p. 108. 2 See TC5.1793-96: "And forcher is sogretdyversite / In Englyssh andynwrytyngofoure ronge, / So prey I God that noon myswryte the [i.e., the poem], / Ne the mysmetre for defaute oftonge." All referencesto and quotations from Chaucer's poetry are taken fromJohn 3 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER In my opinion we can best see textual harassment in CT as but one among many verbal tricks that the pilgrims play on each other to put themselves in the best (and their rivals in the worst) light or to express an idiosyncratic opinion or pet peeve without incurring rebuke. That is, authoritative texts offer prime occasions for the consciousmanipulation of language that links poetic and social discourse in Chaucer's basic concep­ tion of his framed tale collection. As I have articulated this conception elsewhere: In CT Chaucer propounds a fundamental kinship between poetry and the verbal systems generated by very real personal needs and social competition. The ... paradigm can be summarized thus: poetry is social strategy applied to language; society is poetic strategy applied to experience. Linking the two enterprises is the verbal strategy, or language game, a universal human tendency to transform our capacity for communication into an instrument of self-presentation, competition, or mastery.3 The specific language game I am calling textual harassment occurred, as Justman and others remind us, whenever medieval exegetes, scholars, and preachersselected from or imposed specialmeanings on their considerable legacy ofcanonic or authoritative textswith a view to buttressing a particu­ lar-and especially a new or possibly subversive-argument. Chaucer understood that this strategy carried with it considerable potential for distortion in the cause of intellectual self-aggrandizement or successful competition. (He also doubtless recognized its close relationship to tech­ niques-his own and others'-for appropriatingor subverting poetic tradi­ tions in the pursuit of a poetic vocation.) When, in CT, he presents the members ofhis storytelling, socially competitive "felaweship" as experts in textual harassment, he both exposes and celebrates this culturally sanc­ tioned, widely played language game, while concurrently giving himself scope for new displays of artistic virtuosity. H. Fisher, ed., The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1977; hereafter cited as Chaucer). See also Alfred David, "How Marcia Lost Her Skin: A Note on Chaucer's Mythology," in Larry D. Benson, ed., The Lerned and the Lewed: Studies in Honor ofBartlett Jere Whiting (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 19-29, for an instance of how Chaucer perpetuates a mistaken reading of an Ovidian tale from the Metamorphoses, by which the satyr Marsyas becomes a...

Additions to the Golden Mountain: Four Recent Books on ChaucerSigns and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry. John P. Hermann , John J. Burke, Jr.Chaucer's Frankin in the Canterbury Tales: The Social and Literary Background of a Chaucerian Character. Henrik SpechtSyntax and Style in Chaucer's Poetry. Gregory RoscowNew Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism. Donald M. RoseA History of the English Language (1958). G.

Six hundred years later we may well wonder what Geoffrey would think of the golden mountain of Chaucerian commentary that has grown up since his death, most of it in the present century. How much of it is tribute? How much necessary explication? How often does the text of Chaucer merely serve as a mirror or Rorschach blot to stimulate the imagination of modern critics? Such questions are perhaps best left to later historians of our culture. My purpose here is simply to assess the contribution to scholarship represented by four books on Chaucer published in 1981. Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry is a collection of essays mainly by students of D. W. Robertson, Jr. (with a lead essay by Robertson himself), but with the important inclusion of a dissenting opinion by John Gardner at the end. It is perhaps a sign of the confidence of the Robertsonian school that the editors chose to include that final essay; in any case it was an excellent decision. John Gardner remarks, Tone is the historical critic's disaster area (p. 196), and having this pointed out (with examples) greatly enhances the value of the book. All nine essays in Signs and Symbols deal with matters of importance; what follows is but a brief summary of each with occasional comment. In Simple

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry. Edited by J. P. HERMANN and J. J. BURKE. Pp. x + 258. University, Ala: University of Alabama Press, 1981. Cloth, $19.75; paper, $9.95. IAN BISHOP IAN BISHOP Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume XXXV, Issue 139, August 1984, Pages 357–359, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XXXV.139.357 Published: 01 August 1984

G. H. Roscow, Syntax and Style in Chaucer's Poetry, D. S. Brewer, Rowman & Littlefield, 1981., x+158pp.

G. H. Roscow, Syntax and Style in Chaucer's Poetry, D. S. Brewer, Rowman & Littlefield, 1981., x+158pp.

Syntax and Style in Chaucer's Poetry. Gregory H. Roscow

<i>Syntax and Style in Chaucer's Poetry</i>. Gregory H. Roscow

Reviews

Journal Article Reviews Get access Syntax and Style in Chaucer's Poetry . By G. H. ROSCOW . Pp. x+158 . Woodbridge, Suffolk : D. S. Brewer ; Totowa, New Jersey : Rowman and Littlefield , 1981 . £19.50. EDWARD WILSON EDWARD WILSON Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 30, Issue 1, February 1983, Pages 70–71, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/30-1-70 Published: 01 February 1983

Syntax and Style in Chaucer’s Poetry by Gregory H. Roscow

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER The few times that Rollinson comes close to going beyond a general statement and making a direct application ofhis work to the interpretation ofspecific medieval or renaissance poems, he stops shon. In light ofhis purpose and plan this restraint is quite appropriate. It is also appropriate, as he suggests, to strive for an understanding and appreciation ofEuropean allegorical literature on the basis ofhis work, for until that is done, the story is not complete. As for the first pan ofthe story, it has been well wonh the telling. GEORGE D. ECONOMOU Long Island University GREGORY H. Roscow, Syntax and Style in Chaucer's Poetry. Chaucer Studies, vol. 6. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1981; Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield. Pp. x, 158. $40.00. . A title such as "Notes on Syntax and Style in Chaucer's Poetry" would better prepare the reader for what is to be found in the sixth ofthe Chaucer Studies series issued by D. S. Brewer in Cambridge. In his introductory chapter Gregory Roscow sets up a nice middle ground between "two rather different approaches to loose syntax," one, which he erroneously assigns to Margaret Schlauch, "assuming a close correspondence between medieval and modern usage," the other, represented by Norman Blake, "emphasiz­ ing their remoteness." He plans to show in subsequent chapters the ways in which "Chaucer's syntax gains an effect ofimmediacy," emphasizing such features ofMiddle English usage as a "fondness for discontinuous patterns ofword-order and for negative forms ofemphatic expression." He prom­ ises to set Chaucer's usage in its linguistic and literary context, giving special attention to the popular romances, the models in Roscow's view for important elements ofChaucer's vigorous poetic syntax. The second chapter, on word order, starts effectively with a discussion of the famous description oftournament combat from The Knight's Tale, in which Roscow quotes, and then deferentially corrects and extends a com­ ment on the passage by A. C. Spearing. The front shifting oflexical verbs, taken up next, yields two apparently interesting patterns in the scene of 200 REVIEWS Arcite's death in The Knight's Tale and Deiphebus's dinner party in book 2 of Troilus and Criseyde. Reference to the text, however, shows how inadequate Roscow's description of the passages is.The two close lines in The Knight's Tale that supposedly contribute to the emotional impact of the scene surround the discussion of where Arcite's soul went; the second one follows "Now wol I speken forth ofEmilye."And the point about the dinner patty in Troilus and Criseyde is not that "the pace of the narrative quickens"but quite the reverse.What happens is that the narrative stands still while we experience the social amenities, the partial awareness ofmost ofthe panicipants, Pandarus's skill, and the delight he takes in orchestrat­ ing the occasion.The pattern pointed out by Roscow is in any event only one of a multiplicity that contributes to the richness of Chaucer's style in that scene. The comment on the line from The Nun's Priest's Tale, "Ran Colle our dogge..."(line 3383) is similarly inadequate for this liveliest of Chaucer's crowd scenes; it unaccountably fails to take note of line 3385, "Ran cow and calfe and ek the verray hogges." The rest ofthe chapter on word order continues to list out ofcontext the examples for each variation from normal word order to be found in Middle English usage, usually coming to the conclusion that the lines contribute variety and emphasis to Chaucer's style.Subsequent chapters on idiomatic usage, pleonasm, ellipsis, relative clauses, and coordination and parataxis employ the same technique and suggest the absence ofsystem throughout this disappointing book.The examples from popular romance and from Chaucer's contemporaries imply two things: that Chaucer drew from the same native speech as his fellow poets and that the language for poetry in the fourteenth century was closer to colloquial English than it had been in Anglo-Saxon times. Whether they also show the influence of popular romances on Chaucer's style remains a moot question. A total absence offootnotes matches the absence ofexplanation ofwhat the examples reflect...