History Or Fiction?: a Study of Caxton's Narratives
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University M icrofilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, M I48106 8510631 Schmersahl, Carmen Brosius HISTORY OR FICTION?: A STUDY OF CAXTON’S NARRATIVES The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1985 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Copyright 1985 by Schmersahl, Carmen Brosius All Rights Reserved HISTORY OR FICTION?: A STUDY OF CAXTON'S NARRATIVES DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Carmen Brosius Schmersahl, B.A., M.A. ★ * " k * - k The Ohio State University 1985 Reading Committee: Approved By Christian Zacher Alan K. Brown _____ Christiart-?acher Stanley J. Kahrl Department of English Copyright by Carmen Brosius Schmersahl 1 935 VITA May 28, 1950...................................Born--Washington, D. C. 1972.’ .................................................B.A., Gettysburg College Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 1972-1976....................................... University Fellow, Department of English The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1974......................................................M.A., The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 1976-197 7........................ Teaching A ssistant, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1977-197 8.............................. Lecturer, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio 1978-presen t..................................Lecturer and Assistant Professor, Mount Saint Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland . PUBLICATIONS "Women's Literature: What Is It? Who Writer, It? Why Study It?" Women and Society: Problems and Prospects. Emmitsburg, Maryland: Mount Sairit Mary's College, 1982, pp. 107-126. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Medieval Literature. Professor Christian Zacher Rhetoric and Composition. Professor Sara Games Women's Literature. Professor Barbara Rigney English and American Novel. Professor Arnold Shapiro i i TEACHING EXPERIENCE 1978-pres. Mount Saint Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Md. 1980 Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pa. 1977-78 Kenyon College, Gambier, Oh. Subjects: Composition: freshman, Advanced, Developmental, Theory Literature: Medieval, Women's, British Survey, Western Other: Traditional Grammar Workshops: Writing for the Verbally Gifted, Resume Writing, Research S k ills, Writing Mechanics Tutoring: ESL, High School Equivalency (English); Writing Center PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES Chair, Panel on Basic Writing, Penn. St. Conf. on Rhetoric and Composition, 1984 "When Freshman English Is Not Enough," Penn. St. Conf., 1982 "A Writing Center: A Strategy for Survival," VPI, 1981 "Women's Literature: What Is It? Who Writes It? Why Study It?" Mt. St. Mary's, 1979 "Caxton as a Literary Critic," Int'l Cong, on Med. S t., 1979 "A Comparison of the Play of Herod and the Play of Adam," Oh. Conf. on Med. and Ren. S t., 1976 Bibliographer, Int'l Courtly Lit. Soc,, 1976-present ACADEMIC SERVICE KayPro Writing Project Board of Advisors, Balto. Co., Md., 1984 Admissions Committee, Mt. St. Mary's, 1984 Hearing and Appeals Committee, 1983-84 Middle-States Task Force on Academic Programs, 1982-84 Communications Proposal, 1983 Director Freshman Composition, 1981-present Spotlight on Women Committee, 1978-80 Graduate Rep., Eng. Dept. Council, OSU, 1975-77 Ad-Hoc Committee on Non-academic Jobs, 1975-76 Ad-Hoc Committee on Advanced Composition, 1975-76 TABLE OF CONTENTS VJTA..............................................................................................................................................ii Chapter I. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................ 1 II. MEDIEVAL NARRATIVE: THE THEORETICAL TRADITION .... 15 III. NARRATIVE AS HISTORY: GODEFROY OF BOLOGNE ....................... 53 IV. NARRATIVE AS FICTION: BLANCHARDIN AND EGLANTINE . 89 V. HISTORY OR FICTION?: TWO CASES................................................125 VI. HISTORY AND FICTION: LE MORTE DARTHUR ................................. 154 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................196 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 201 INTRODUCTION This study began as an investigation into the nature of medieval romance, with the hope of arriving at a better understanding of what the medieval writer and audience understood the type of narrative we call romance to be. Like many such studies, it did not end with the same focus with which it began. The problems involved in trying to define or classify romance are too familiar to need enumeration here.1 On the surface the task of definition would seem straightforward. We all think we know that a romance is a fictional narrative of chivalric deeds and courtly love. Early discussions of romance assumed such a definition, but its inadequacy has long been obvious. Narratives like the "English" or Charlemagne romances do not quite f i t that description, so we are left with the overly-broad and general definition of "a fictional narrative." Yet removing chivalry as a prime ingredient ignores what most would call the central issue. Recent attempts to define romance, which frequently take account of these problems, have not been fully satisfactory, either, often because in their attempts at all-iinclusiveness they fail to illuminate the genre or individual 2 medieval examples in a meaningful way. We seem to be le ft with a negative definition: a romance is a narrative that is not chron icle, exemplum, fabliau, saint's life, or tale. I have finally needed to assume, in order to proceed with my exploration, that we all know a romance when we read one, even i f we cannot sa tisfa cto rily des cribe all romances by one set of criteria--hardly a definitive charac terization. Unable to arrive inductively at a definition of romance, I turned to medieval writers (sp ecifically rhetoricians and grammarians) 3 on narrative. Their remarks on narrative, reported in detail in my second chapter, are highly derivative and general. Yet several strands running through the tradition are suggestive. Writers are continuously concerned with justifying literature, especially fiction, on moral grounds, and literary narrative is repeatedly classified according to its relationship to literal truth. Both of these strands are particularly applicable to romance and, I suggest, may help us better understand the genre because the relationship of many romances to literal truth is so unclear. It has always seemed to me that one of romance's most important appealsis th a titis particularly well- suited to fulfill Horace's injunction that literature teach and de light, and that it does so by virtue of its fictionality, that is, its nature as neither literal history nor fable. The best romar.ces-- those of Chaucer, Gottfried, The Gawain-poet, Malory— provide pro found insights into human problems and moral dilemmas while entrancing us with their creation of a literary universe and characters. Even pedestrian romances frequently offer flashes of humor or fantasy that entertain, and the status of romances as courtesy books gives them a didactic function at least at that most trivial level. The appeal of romance, then and now, is undoubted, and my intuition is that a great deal of that appeal (both moral and aesthetic) inheres in romance's essential nature as fictio n . However, that intuition leads in turn to new problems. It has long been