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THE DANCE OP DEATH and the CANTERBURY TALES > A THE DANCE OP DEATH AND THE CANTERBURY TALES > A COMPARATIVE STUDY APPROVEDi Major Professor Minor Professor Consulting Professor f (AjiXica^v\ ~ff Chaiigaan of Graduate Studies In English Deah of the Graduate School Mass?, ft» Karl art A , , The Dance of Death and. 'HPA {"* T | V" ^ ^ 1 ? y *y? A Cgragayatlre Study, Master of Arts, Augustt 1973# ?? pp. * bibliography $ K-0 titles. This paper is a discussion of parallels between Lydgate1s Dance cf l>ga.th and Ch&uoer®s Car,terbury Tales, The first chapter suatrarlies facts and theories concerning the origin and development of the death-dance and draws the conclusion that the motif was .fully developed before Chaucer*s tisie. Chapter 11 coamres the structures of the two works, The outstanding element in common Is the pilgrimage, but with- in this structural framevforJc the authors go beyond conven- tional portraiture to illuminate Individual characters, Another element in caramon is character types who represent a cross-section of medieval society and exemplify the seven deadly sins. In the third chapter* The CanterfoAry Tale a and the Dance of Death are compared theisa ti©ally, and parallels are draroi "between their trea t/aents of the thesis of death. Largely due to the effects of the Black Plague on the Middle Ages, the predominant elooiemt in both works is the emphasis on the suddenness of death and the consequent fear of dying tmshriven, The idea of death as retribution for sin does not play a dominant role, The Iteie cf Death and The Can^rbw^ 5^1fc-s do, however, examine fchs sins of the characters and stress the finality of Death, thereby placing final importance on ma.-, f.ov.,1 % f.ion a»: dest"? e.nct cn h.is resultant f<s.fce. Both works emphasise the value of spiritual life by portraying characters who are suffering spiritual death. Chanter IV deals with the differences between Lydgate's English translation of the Danse Macabre and the original trench version. Parallels are drawn between those charac- ters wnora Lydgate added and similar characters in The Can~ Lydgate retained much of the satiric tone of his original, the same gently mocking tone which largely psr- vad8S ^fcir!2SrZ 25lS*. All three works—the Panse macabre £ Lydgate's loose translation of it, and The Canterbury Tfc.les— attempt to show that this world is only a fleeting journey toward -.leath, and, although they closely observe sin, they are tempered with the belief in a heavenly paradise. TIE DA.KC3 OF USA TH AND THE CACTERBUR Y TALES t A COMPARATIVE STUDY THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the Morth Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of FASTER OF ARTS By Marian A, Mass?is, A, Den t on t Terx s 'tVowst, 1°?3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE DANCE OP DEATH IN FRANCE AND ENGL&ND ..................... * . 1 II. STRUCTURAL COMPARISON OF THE DANCE OF DEATH WITH THE CANTERBURY TALES..". 18 in. thematic comparison of the dance of death WITH THE CANTERBURY TAIEST . .7. ....... 33 IV, .LYDGATS'S DAUNCE OF HACKABREE 59 BTBLIOGRAPHY, , .7^ .1 It UnAPTKB I The Dance of Death in Prance and England At no time has there been so much emphasis on death as during the late Middle Ages when both the frequent occur- rences of plague and the "accumulative effect of Christian teaching ms.de men aware of impending doom. The ancients viewed Death f,s simply a necessary, not particularly unpleasant part of life, the sombre brother of Sleep." Christian! ty, on the other hand, taught that death was man5a punishment for sin? "For the wages of sin is death . (Romans 6123). The teachings of the Church do not, however, entirely account for the widespread preoccupation with the theme of death in the ,J Middle A.frss, The plague nust have especlsO. ly affected the imagination and art-expression of those years,1*" The repeated visitations of the Black Death to Western Europe and England betwc?n 13*1-2 and 1*1-50 reduced the population by as much as one third,"'' By the end of the fourteenth century, the theme of '"Theodore Spencer5 T»e«\th and F13 ESbethon Trfi^edjv; (New York; Pageant Books, InoT, T9do7, pp. 5^57 ™ """ "• "Eleanor P. Hammond, ed., English Verse Between Cjhauioejr *)>£££& (192?; rpt, New Morkt Octagon Books 19*6^5", p. 1 'id. Hereafter clt-cd atv oh l>orse0 •"-?, • Sidney Painter, A *?i££orv; 2.C. t-JflSt Niddj^p A/fes;, 28*5—1500 (New Yorks Alfred A., Itr-opf* 'A r,53) > P» 375* ^ I h death had become a common notif in popular literature„' and its tone had altered percepti "biy i the horror of death vras suddenly revealed. Death, which had been portrayed primarily in relation to the afterlife and man's salvation, now "took a spectral and fantastic shape—the death-dance,"" or Danse Macabre, The depiction of social classes from the Pope down to the common laborer gave the dance much of the power which made 6 it so popular. Death was portrayed as the social leveler, before whom all men were equal. Typically the participants in the death-dance were approached by Death and, after replying, were led away on his dance, regardless of their social posi- tions , Thus, the bourgeois spectator or reader could share with Death the satisfaction of making the rich and powerful as ? helpless as the laborer. The Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death, refers to an actual dance, a mural painting, or written verses. It is difficult to trace with complete certainty the sources and development of the dance arid to determine the exact point at which it appeared in a fully developed literary form, Similarly, k Johan Kiilziiwra, The Waning of the Middle A^es (London* Sd'wa rd Arnold & Co, , 1 927%™pT 12%, " ~ 5Ibid,, p. 12Q. ^Florence Warrened,, The Dance of Death, E, Ti. T» S,, CS 131 (.Condons Oxford University Press, 193 i")* p. x. 7vfEnglis h Verse, p„ t')Q. confusion has arisen concerning the dating and authorship of the Danse Ma cab-re, partly due to varying interpretations of the word macabre. The most widely accepted theory is that Macabre is the name of the author of the original text; John Lydgate called his version The Daunco of Machabree. The first known reference to the word appeared in -Jean Le Fevre* s 1J?6 edition, Le Respit de la Mort, in the line, "Je fis de Macabre Q la danse." This line has been interpreted to mean that Le Fevre was the original author of the Danse Macabre. Since he spent most of his time translating, it is moire likely that he translated Latin verses into the French, if he had any connec- Q tion with the writing of the danse,7 Although the line can be translated, "I p.ade of death the dance," the French does not make it clear how the verb "fis" should be translated, and the line could also have the meaning, "I took from Macabre the dance," This interpretation lends support to the theory that Macabre is the name of the author, and the capitalization of the word is further evidence for this point of view, Lydgate introduces "Machabree" as the character who is master of the dance. The word has also been thought to be the name of the first painter, but this is improbable since titles of paintings in the fifteenth century did not include the name of the ^Albert Dauzat, Dlctionnaire Btymoloffique de la Lan.?ue FrancaIse (Paris? Librairie Larousse, 1938), p, **4? "and'cj^D, VI, L-M (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1933)» 2 s,v. macabre, o Warren, pp, xvi-xvii. 10 artist. One suggestion is that macabre Is a plural (maqabir) It for the Ax'ablc word meaning burial-place" ' or "tomb" (raaqb&ra); a more "plausible" etymological source, according to Gaston Paris, 12 is the Tlacchabeus of the Bible, Further discoveries need to be made before the dating and authorship of the Danse Ma'cabre oan "be determined with any certainty, It is apparent, neverthe- less, that the Danse Macabre existed before Le Fevre's 1376 edition. Most scholars agree that the earliest form of the motif is the dance , for which there are two main theories of origin. The least probable one is held by James Clark, who theorized that the death-dance motif in dance form may be derived from folklore superstitions concerning the dead rising from their graves and dancing in churchyards or the dance performed by 13 fairies leading mortals to death. J There is, however, no con- crete evidence to support Clark's theory. The theory more generally accepted is that the death-dance is of ecclesiastic origin. Dancing in churches and churchyards took place very i oy ,A Hmile Male, Religious Art from the Twelfth to the ElPihbeenth Century (New York t" Pantheon Books "f Inc., 19^9), p. Hereafter cited as Religious Art. 13 'L. Marcel Devxc, Dictionnaire des Mots Francais D'Orlglne Or.lentele (18737"rpt. Amsterdam: Oriental Press, 1955). P. 153. ? -? " Warren, p. 99. 1 3 'James Clark, Intro., Hans Holbein, The Dance of Death (London; Phaidon Press Ltd,, 19^7), p. 7. 3t early, with disapproval frequently expressed by the Church. In the ninth ctntury " lioir^-n CcuntiJ. ncr Pops '.iugeriius eouiiJieriLed on the practices "Ut sacerdit.es adraoneant viros ac ir.ulieres, qui Testis diebus as ecclesiair. occurrunt, ne bailor do e t turpia verba decantando choros teneant, ac ducunt, slra.il fcudinenr ' 1f ' paganorum peragendo." Chambers cites similar prohibitions by the following councilsi Auxerre (573-603)? Chalons (639-5*1-)? Rome (826); Toledo (589)? Avignon (1209); Bayeaux (1300) The prohibitions were generally ignored, and people continued dancing in the churchyards until they were, apparently, punished "by God himself.
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