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Reading the Dream Visions and Troilus and Criseyde

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Reading the Dream Visions and Troilus and Criseyde University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2006 Chaucer's Questioning Impulse: Reading the Dream Visions and Troilus and Criseyde Anita K. Bergeson University of Tennessee, Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Bergeson, Anita K., "Chaucer's Questioning Impulse: Reading the Dream Visions and Troilus and Criseyde. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2006. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4290 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Anita K. Bergeson entitled "Chaucer's Questioning Impulse: Reading the Dream Visions and Troilus and Criseyde." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Laura L. Howes, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Tom Heffernan, Tom Burman, Joe Trahern Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Anita K. Bergeson entitled "Chaucer's Questioning Impulse: Reading the Dream Visions and Troi/us and Criseyde." I have examined the final paper copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements forthe degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. �Uh�Laura L. Howes, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: <(!,,_..,,,..�-- (, � Accepted for the Council: Vice Chancellor an Graduate Studies CHAUCER'S QUESTIONING IMPULSE: READING THE DREAM VISIONS AND TROILUS AND CRISEYDE A Dissertation Presented forthe Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Anita K. Bergeson August 2006 11 Copyright © 2006 by Anita K. Bergeson All rights reserved. lll Dedication This project is dedicated to Dr. Phil Hanse, under whose guidance my reading of Chaucer began, with profoundappreciation forhis encouragement and deep regret that he could not see its completion. IV Acknowledgements I owe a large debt of gratitude, which I cannot come close to repaying, to Dr. Laura Howes, forher invaluable support and guidance. I wish to thank the entire dissertation committee for their advice, comments, and encouragement as the project began and progressed to completion. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Tom Heffernan for teaching and guidance that began with my firstgraduate class, Dr. Joe Trahern for teaching Old English and kindly agreeing to serve on the committee, and Dr. Tom Burman for serving on the committee and introducing valuable references I would not have otherwise encountered. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Lynn Champion, for time to write. V ABSTRACT Models of medieval reading oftendescribe a process that divorces emotion from intellect or that sees the reader in a position of dominance over the text. This project examines reden, with its overlapping meanings of interpretation, counsel, advice, and control, and reading scenes in Chaucer's early dream visions and Troilus and Criseyde. In these poems, Chaucer uses reden to question and reassess acts of reading as an interactive process between text and reader. In the Book of the Duchess, reading is emotive interpretation that consoles neither the narrator nor the Black Knight. The House of Fame explores reading and textual production in the story of Dido and Aeneas, Fame's decisions, and the tidings in the House of Rumor. The Parliament of Fowls illustrates how multiple forms of advice can lead nowhere. By drawing upon prior texts in setting out the above ideas, Chaucer also points to disagreement with the texts upon which he draws. Troilus and Criseyde, which contains a greater number of readers, expands ideas contained in the dream visions. In treating Criseyde as a text, the narrator's, Pandarus', and Troilus' readings attempt to control her, yet Criseyde resists and offers texts that prove difficult to interpret or control. The narrator demonstrates that stories are conflicting, unsatisfying, unruly, and even capable of betraying an author. Rather than separating intellect and emotion, Chaucer's reading scenes assert the conjunction of the two and the interactivity of reader and text: readers can rewrite a text, but they cannot escape the source-there is neither liberty from, nor a tyranny of, tradition. Vl CONTENTS 1. Introduction, Reading Chaucer . 1 2. Reading, Dreaming, and the Knight's Tale in the Book of theDuchess ..... 36 3. The "fulconfus mater" of the House of Fame and the Parliament of Fowls. 65 4. "my penne, allas, with which I write": The Narrator and Criseyde . 113 5. Pandarus: Chaucer's Other Author. 165 Bibliography . 201 Vita . ....... .. .. ...................... .... .... .... ..... .. ........ 217 CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Reading Chaucer Characters in Chaucer's poetry are oftenreading something. The Book of the Duchessnarrator, in order to combat his sleeplessness, asks fora book "To rede and drive the night away" (49). In the House of Fame, the narrator reads the story of Dido. The Parliament of Fowls narrator reads Cicero's SomniumScipionis and the two inscriptions on the gate to the Garden of Love. Pandarus famously reads an "old romaunce" on the night Troilus and Criseyde consummate their relationship (111.980). 1 Troilus and Criseyde read the letters each sends to the other via Pandarus. The narrator tells us at times what his source, "Lollius," does and does not say. Acts of reading are, however, more complex than just reading of words in a text or on a wall. In significantmoments, Chaucer uses "rede" to signify multiple meanings of the word. The Book of theDuchess narrator reads the story of Ceyx and Alcyone and reacts thus: I, that made this book, Had such pitee and such rowthe To rede hir sorwe that, by my trowthe, I ferde the worse al the morwe Aftirto thenken on hir sorwe. (96-100) Reading here is the perusal of a book, but also, as the lines following "rede" suggest, the contemplation of it, as the narrator feelspity to learnof Alcyone's sorrow. The House of 1 Texts of Chaucer's poetry from The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed., Larry D. Benson, ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). 2 Fame's Dido addresses the absent Aeneas: "For thorgh yow is my name lorn,/ And alle myn actes red and songe / Over al thys lond, on every tonge" (346-48). Dido fears the reading and singing of her name, but also the interpretation of her deeds "on every tonge." In response to the other birds' opinions about the debate over the formel,the cuckoo offersan interpretation fromhis point of view, advising, "Lat ech of hem be soleyn al here lyve! / This is my red, syn they may not acorde" (Parliament ofFowls 60 7- 60 8). The narrator at the start of Troilus and Criseyde advises his audience to bow to love: "thereforeI yow rede I To folowenhym that so wel kan yow lede" (1.258-259). Pandarus offers hisguidance in a formof "rede": "I love oon best, and that me smerteth sore; I And yet, peraunter, kan I redden the/ And nat myself; repreve me na moore" (1.667-669). Afterprotesting against the presence of Troilus' letter, Criseyde takes it from Pandarus and removes herself to her chamber, "Ful pryvely this lettre for to rede; / Avysed word by word in every lyne" (11.1174-11 75). She looks at the words on the page, but she also does more: she advises herself and deliberates over every word of the text with which she has just been presented. In the above and in other instances discussed in subsequent chapters, Chaucer signals his interest in reading, advice, guidance, counsel, learning,and interpretation through formsof the verb re den. Although scholars have noted Chaucer's interest in key words such as entente and sikernesse,2 it is surprising that his use of reden has received little attention. Rosemarie McGerr brieflymentions Chaucer's use of the term as she 2 Elizabeth Archibald's insightful"Declarations of 'Entente' in Troi/us and Criseyde" (Chaucer Review 25 [ 1991 ], 190-213); Stephen Barney's"Suddenness and Process in Chaucer" Chaucer Review 16 ( 1981): 18- 37; and more recently, Timothy O'Brien's "Sikernesse and Fere in Troilus and Criseyde" Chaucer Review 38 (2004): 276-93. Chaucer's linguistic awareness in terms of character names is examined in Susan Schibanoffs"Argus and Argyve: Etymology and Characterization in Chaucer's Troilus," Speculum 51 (1976): 647-58. 3 discusses Book II of Troilus and Criseyde, which "present[s] discourse as a game of reading one's own advantage and blinding others to one's true intent" beginning with Pandarus' first visit to Criseyde. 3 Middle English reden derives fromOld English rcedan, which is derived from Common Teutonic formsof the word, all sharing a meaning of giving counsel, taking charge, or controlling something. According to the OED, "the application of this to the interpretation of ordinary writing, and to the expression of this in speech, is confinedto English and ON," with the latter perhaps being influenced by English.4 In Old English, rcedanhad seven basic meanings: to give counsel or advice; to consult, deliberate, or take counsel about something with someone, to debate in council, or to provide for; to determine or decide, to take action against someone; to rule, govern, or direct; to have possession of; to explain, as in a riddle, or to read a book; to read aloud; to prepare.
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