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Medieval Romance and Feminine Difference in the Knight's Tale

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Medieval Romance and Feminine Difference in the Knight's Tale Medieval Romance and Feminine Difference in The Knight’s Tale Susan Crane Rutgers University ECENTLY THE learned and classicizing aspects of Geoffrey Chau- cer’sR Knighti Tale have received more favor than the tale’s affiliations with romance. A. C. Spearing argues in his Medievalto RenaIjsance in English Poetry that “we must recognize in Chaucer, wherever we look, a contempt for romance of all kinds.“] A. J. Minnis, Derek Brewer, Robert Frank, and J. A. Burrow have also noted Chaucer’s lack of interest in or sympathy for romance, especially for its narrative illogicalities and unmotivated mar- vels.2 Much in The Knight? Tale is not best understood in terms of romance; for example, emphasizing Chaucer’s classicism illuminates ideas about order and justice in the tale, and mythographic analyses consider Chaucer’s use of Boccaccio’s Teseida. Yet readers have long recognized that the romance genre informs The Knight? Tale more fully than any other genre. Spearing concurs with earlier critics in calling the tale a “classical” or “philosophical romance,”a generic modification that simplifies and clar- ifies plot and makes wonders explicable or historicizes them “as part of the religion of the classical past. “3 Chaucer’s generic revisions, in this view, free The Knight) Tale from disorder and irrationality, precisely the qualities that characterize romance from the classical perspective. 1 A. C. Spearing, Medievai to Renazssance in English Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 36 All Chaucer quotations are from Larry Benson, gen. ed., The Rzvemde Chaucer, 3d ed. (Boston: Houghton, 1987). 2 A.J. Minnis, CbaucerandPagan Antzquzty (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer; Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1982), pp. 7-8, 133; Derek S. Brewer, Symboh Stork: ikhtzonal Narratrves ofthe Famly Dramam Enghh Literature (Cambridge: D. SBrewer; Totowa, N.). : Rowman & Littlefield. 1980), pp. 92-97, 99; Robert Worth Frank, Jr., Chaucer and the Legend of Good Women (Cambridge, Mass : Harvard Univ. Press, 1972), pp. 111-33; J. A. Burrow,“The Canterbury Taies, 1: Romance,”in Piero Borrani and Jill Mann, eds.. The Cambridge Chaucer Companton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p 109. 3 Spearing, Medzeval to Renamance, pp. 38-39; see also Minnis. Chaucer and Pagan Antzquity; William Frost, “An Interpretation of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale,” REJ 25 (1949): 289- 304; John Halverson. “Aspects of Order in the Knight’s Tale,” SP 57 (1960):606-21. 47 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER MEDIEVAL I believe that Chaucer’s sense of romance illogicalities and marvels Adventure is the critical term n contributes to his treatment of gender, justice, and order in The Knight) arbitrary, the random, and the un Tale. The scene in Diana’s temple, which seems from classical and Boccac- romance from the clear necessitie: cian perspectives to be marred by a number of compositional weaknesses, is surance of hagiography, and the ins particularly meaningful when considered in terms of romance conventions. encompasses a persistent generic tt In this scene and beyond, romance informs the tale’s representation of reverse and to answer each voice Emelye as an occasion for adventure and courtship. Both Emelye and Diana encouters with threatening, magi contradict the tale’s governing ideals and structures and do so in the simply adversarial. Sometimes a kn unmotivated mode of romance. Emelye expresses a desire not to love or be Erec et Eniu’e kills three or five att: loved that may seem simply coy, but that does not make easy sense in his defeat of Yder son of Nut, his I relation to her other manifestations in the tale. Diana’s manifestations are final combat with Mabonagrain, ir similarly imponderable. Around both figures Chaucer has generated il- out to be knights rather like Erec h logicalities from Boccaccio’s more coherent presentation. The omens Diana allies. Bevis of Hampton defeats a I shows Emelye, for example, predict a future that Diana should not know. him across Europe as faithfully and Chaucer attributes an unexplained prescience to Diana by moving the him. In Sir Gawain and the Green scene in her temple from its place following the gods’ determinations in the Gawain proves to be strangely bene Tereida to a moment preceding Arcite’s prayer to Mars and the ensuing ambiguous and ineffable that corn dispute among the gods. This and several similar compositional adjust- Courtship, whose vocabulary is ments to the Teseida might be thought careless or insignificant for their adventure of many romances. Stept illogicality, but I would like to reconsider them as aspects of a romance tion of courtship is precisely the ori sensibility that permeates The Knight) Tale. isolation of love lyric and the monolc Diana tells Emelye that the omens on her altar reveal “thyn aventure of a dialogue between the lover and t love” (line 2357). “Adventure” evokes both the Boethian hierarchy of “subjects love to interpretations ot. apparent causes, as a near synonym for “sort” and “fortune,” and the placed on it by the bemused lover ir generic field of romance, as the term of choice for encounters with the of the beloved may be the first inr unknown.* Diana’s uncanny foreknowledge in this scene strengthens monologism of the lover.“’ Alterit the term’s romance associations over its rationalized philosophical ones. unpredictable and exotic forces en The significance of adventure in romance differs, indeed reverses, the which like the beloved both resis significance assigned it in Boethian philosophy, where all apparent acci- combat but also contact with the ai dents are subsumed in a providential design. A few illustrations may clarify the animal. These adversaries may how differently adventure signifies in romance and how romance prepares ture often culminates not simply I Emelye’s and Diana’s roles. My examples do not imply Chaucer’s direct marrying the woman, seizing the er knowledge of particular romances; the idea of adventure is so pervasive in pagan, taming the animal. At the c romance that particular illustrations are everywhere available. validity inheres in that strangeness o: expanding and transforming the he i The former sense is illustrated in lines such as “Were it by aventure or destynee” and “For falling nys nat but an avenue” (lines 1465, 2722), the latter in Arcite’s “For which I tolde thee 3 Stephen G. Nichols, “Amorous Imiratio myn aventure” and “Thy” is the victorie of this aventure” (lines 1160, 1235). On “aventure” as a in Kevin Brownlee and Marina Scordilis Bro synonym for “fortune” see Howard R. Patch, The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaevai Literature from Cbr~tien de Troyes to Cervantes (Hano (CambrIdge. Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1927), pp. 39-40. England, 1985), pp. 49-511. 48 MEDIEVAL ROMANCE AND FEMININE DIFFERENCE romance illogicalities and marvels Adventure is the critical term most specific to romance, indicating the r, justice, and order in The Knight) arbitrary, the random, and the unmotivated that divide the experience of lich seems from classical and Boccac- romance from the clear necessities of epic struggle, the transcendent as- mber of compositional weaknesses, is surance of hagiography, and the instructive designs of chronicle. Adventure red in terms of romance conventions. encompasses a persistent generic tendency to counter one position with its informs the tale’s representation of reverse and to answer each voice with its contradiction. Yet in romance Id courtship. Both Emelye and Diana encouters with threatening, magical, or exotic forces do not tend to be Is and structures and do so in the simply adversarial. Sometimes a knight such as Erec of Chretien de Troyes’s ‘ye expresses a desire not to love or be ERG et Enide kills three or five attacking villains, but more important are it that does not make easy sense in his defeat of Yder son of Nut, his long joust with Guivret le Petit, and his 1 the tale. Diana’s manifestations are final combat with Mabonagrain, in which the anonymous adversaries turn rh figures Chaucer has generated il- out to be knights rather like Erec himself, even potential companions and -rent presentation. The omens Diana allies. Bevis of Hampton defeats a pagan giant, Ascopart , who then follows t future that Diana should not know. him across Europe as faithfully and meekly as Guy of Warwick’s lion follows prescience to Diana by moving the him. In Sir Gawaln and the Green Knight the magic that seems to doom ,wing the gods’ determinations in the Gawain proves to be strangely benevolent. Adventure has an element of the ite’s prayer to Mars and the ensuing ambiguous and ineffable that complicates its challenge. several similar compositional adjust- Courtship, whose vocabulary is so often that of combat, is the central ght careless or insignificant for their adventure of many romances. Stephen Nichols believes that the representa- nsider them as aspects of a romance tion of courtship is precisely the origin of romance, the point at which the it? Tale. isolation of love lyric and the monologism of earlier narrative poetry yield to on her altar reveal “thyn aventure of a dialogue between the lover and the resisting, unknowable woman who kes both the Boethian hierarchy of “subjects love to interpretations other than those flattering constructions 1 for “sort” and “fortune,” and the placed on it by the bemused lover in his solitary lyric reverie. The voice m of choice for encounters with the of the beloved may be the first intimation of alterity intruding into the lowledge in this scene strengthens monologism of the lover.“> Alterity extends from women’s voices to the its rationalized philosophical ones. unpredictable and exotic forces encountered in other adventures, forces jmance differs, indeed reverses, the which like the beloved both resist and attract the hero.
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