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Geoffrey Chaucer As Witness Cleveland State University EngagedScholarship@CSU English Faculty Publications English Department 1993 Interpreting Guillaume de Lorris’ Oiseuse: Geoffrey Chaucer as Witness Gregory M. Sadlek Cleveland State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cleng_facpub Part of the French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! Publisher's Statement Copyright © 1993 The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article first appeared in South Central Review, Volume 10, Issue 1, 1993, 22-37. Original Published Citation Sadlek, Gregory M. “Interpreting Guillaume de Lorris’ Oiseuse: Geoffrey Chaucer as Witness.” South Central Review 10.1 (1993): 2 2-37. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English Department at EngagedScholarship@CSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of EngagedScholarship@CSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. InterpretingGuillaume de Lorris'sOiseuse: GeoffreyChaucer as Witness GREGORY M. SADLEK UniversityofNebraska at Omaha Certes,the hevene is yevento hem that wol labouren,and natto ydel folk -Chaucer's Parson Near the opening of theRoman de la Rose,Guillaume de Lorrisintroduces the firstallegorical character in Deduit's garden,the garden's gatekeeper. She is an attractiveyoung woman, picturedwith a mirror,whose carefree lifeincludes no morework than her own daily toilet.' The interpretation of this character,Oiseuse, presentsa textualcrux. The Old Frenchword "oisose" or "uiseuse" indicates"inaction," "leisure," "laziness," or "folly."2 Nevertheless,twentieth-century critics have been unable to agree on the character'sexact import. Two generalpositions have arisen. To one group of critics,Oiseuse representsa personalvice, perhaps lechery or idleness or laziness. Criticsholding thisview believe that Oiseuse is a reprehensible figure,justly condemned by Guillaume and all historicallyaware readers ofthe Roman. To the othergroup of critics, Oiseuse representsa virtue. She mightbe the aristocraticleisure necessary for the contemplationof beauty or even thepleasure of beauty itself. For themOiseuse is an attractivefigure and a necessarycondition for the practice of Courtly Love. Using the terms "courtly" and "clerkly"to identifythese schools is helpful.3However, in each of these camps one finds subtle differencesof interpretationand methodology. In thisarticle I hope to sortout the differencesof opinion on Oiseuse and advance our historicalunderstanding of this characterusing reception criticism.Specifically, I offerevidence on hermeaning from the writingsof GeoffreyChaucer, one of Guillaume's early and influentialreaders. Not only did Chaucer translatethe Romaninto Middle English, but he also commented-directlyand indirectly-on the Roman,its imagery,and its doctrine. Indeed, JamesWimsatt calls Chaucer the Roman's"most famous evangelist."4Chaucer's authorityas a translatorof French love poetrywas acknowledged by his French contemporary,Eustache Deschamps, who, afterpraising Chaucer forthe Romauntof the Rose, called him "grand trans- lateur"and senthim some ofhis own poetry.5Nevertheless, evidence from Chaucer's writings,important as it is, has not been given the systematic attentionitdeserves in the recent debate over Oiseuse's meaning. Withinthe clerkly and courtly schools, many different methodologies- lexicological,exegetical, iconographic, and formalist-have been used to decipherOiseuse's meaning. Moreover, critics have looked both into her literarypedigree and into her medieval reception. A fewkey interpretive assumptions,however, necessarily precede judgments on Oiseuse's mean- ing. Since both camps invoke contextas an importantjustifying element, the firstassumption concerns what the criticstake to be the centralmessage ofthe whole Roman.6The second followsfrom the first assumption: namely, the significanceof Deduit's garden. Fromthese followswhat is oftenthe key interpretiveassertion: the iconographicsignificance of Oiseuse's comb and mirror. The clerklyschool of readersis dominatedby the Exegetes. Finding the Romande la Rose to be neithera handbook of love nor an authoritative dream,they declare it to be a nightmareoffering an exemplumof a lover caughtin "idolatrouslechery." The nightmare,however, is only an "integ- ument," a covering,which hides the necessarilyChristian moral of the poem.7 Deduit's gardenis, then, a gardenof sinful pleasures. Oiseuse, the porterof thisgarden, is a vice. On the basis of Oiseuse's mirrorand comb, D. W. Robertson,Jr., underscores the strongiconographic links between Oiseuse and luxuria. JohnFleming and Charles Dahlberg take up and elaborate Robertson's arguments.8 Fleming argues that Oiseuse is not exactly luxuriabut Ovidian idleness "cognate with the capital vice of Sloth."9 Not all clerklyreaders are Exegetes,however. Throughan explorationof Guillaumede Lorris'sindebtedness to Ovid, MartaPowell Harleyfinds that the Romanis not a celebrationof CourtlyLove but "a statementof some consequence on the destructivenessof . obsessive passion."10 Harley argues that Guillaume's characterizationof Oiseuse is ultimatelyderived fromOvid's treatmentof Salmacisin theMetamorphoses because both char- acters carrycombs and mirrors."1Because of this link,Harley finds that Oiseuse represents"narcissistic lethargy."12 While clerklyreaders see the Romanas an ironicpiece of moral didacti- cism,courtly readers tend to see it as a handbook on the practiceof Courtly Love.13They tend to interpretwithout irony Guillaume's comment that the Romanis a book "ou l'art d'Amorsest tote enclose" [in which the whole art oflove is contained](38). Deduit's gardenbecomes, then, a secularParadise, whereinaristocratic lords and ladies practicea refinedcode oflove. Oiseuse is the aristocraticleisure necessaryto enjoy Deduit's garden.14Herbert Kolb, forexample, finds that, while a woman with a mirrorand combcould representluxuria, such a moralisticinterpretation would not be appropriate forthe keeper of the paradise of love. Kolb would rathertrace Oiseuse's pedigree to monasticotium, the leisure monksneeded to practicecontem- plation. Interpretedin this context,Oiseuse becomes the leisurenecessary for a "hofisch-weltlich. kontemplativenLebens," a secular, courtly contemplativelife.15 Othercourtly readers agree that Oiseuse is a virtuein the systemof CourtlyLove expoundedby theRoman. Sounding much like Kolb, Jean Batanyargues that Deduit's garden is a monasteryof love towhich Love's followersflee. Oiseuse is leisure,a "social-psychologicalforce" that makes CourtlyLove possible.16 Erich Kohler finds Oiseuse to be the "paradiesischenLebenslust im Lande ewigen Fruihlings und harmonischer Geselligkeitim Geiste suindefreier Liebe" [heavenly love oflife in theland of eternalspring and harmoniouscompany in the spiritof love without sin].17Shigemi Sasaki writes that Oiseuse, leisure, "est une valeuret une vertu que Guillaumeintegre a bon escientdans l'Fthique courtoise traditionnelle"[is a value and a virtuethat Guillaume advisedly integrates into the traditionalcourtly ethic]. She adds thatGuillaume's attitude towardaristocratic leisure is thataspect of the Roman to whichGuillaume referswhen he comments"La matireest et bone et nueve" [Its matter is good and new].'8 CarlosAlvar writes that Oiseuse, like Ovid's Venus,simply representsfeminine beauty.'9 Finally, Earl Jeffrey Richards believes that Guillaume'spersonification is a sensualand eroticfigure who signifies "verbalfolly." Although he, like Kolb, agrees that a womanwith mirror and combcould representluxuria, he arguesthat this would be a "marginal traditionin theoverall 13th-century iconographic tradition."20 Theseare the modem interpretations ofOiseuse. If one assumes that only a single,foundational meaning resides in thetext, such radically different and seeminglyincompatible interpretations ofOiseuse's character suggest thatwe mustabandon the interpretations ofeither the courtly or the clerkly readers. Oiseuse's meaning, however, does not simply reside in Guillaume'stext. As reception theorists have argued, her meaning is inpart constructedby Guillaume'sreaders.21 Thus, it is possiblethat both sets of criticsmay, at leastin part,offer historically valid interpretations. Specific commentaryabout Oiseuse by Guillaume'snear contemporariesoffers a valuablemethod of evaluatingthese conflicting interpretations. Indeed, criticsusing reception methodologies have already deepened our historical understandingof the Roman considerably. Nevertheless, important mate- rialsrelating to Oiseuse'smedieval reception still await exploration.2 Forall thereasons mentioned in myintroduction, Geoffrey Chaucer is a good readerto query. AlthoughChaucer's reading of Oiseuse does not necessarilygive us Guillaume'sunderstanding and althoughhe writes morethan 100 years after Guillaume, he was an importantmedieval trans- latorof the Roman. He knewthe Roman intimately, and it influencedhis poetryprofoundly. Moreover, because he was notFrench and his opinions antedatethose in the "Querellede la Rose,"his writingsoffer a fresh, outside perspective.Scholarship on Chaucerand theRoman is voluminous, but generallyChaucerians treat the Romanas a way to set the background for Chaucer's writingsrather than using Chaucer as a witness for the interpretationof the Roman.23F. N. M. Diekstra'srecent study is an excep- tionto therule, but, finally, it is less a receptionstudy
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