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THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE SOUL AS A METAPHOR OF THE MORAL STRUGGLE \U THE MIDDLE AGES, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE by JOHN ALLEN CANUTESON A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1975 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to many good friends who have helped during the research and v/riting of this study. To Dr. Richard Green, Chairman of my Supervisory Committee, and to Dr. Robert H. Bowers go my warm thanks for criticism and guidance. To Dr. Dean Dunham and Dean Bruce R. Thompson of IVilliam Jewell College go my thanks for patience, small classes, and immunity from committee assignments, and to Asso- ciate Dean Gordon Kingsley my appreciation for a winter term in which to work exclusively on the dissertation. The staffs of the University of Florida Library and William Jewell College Library have been dili- gent in finding and borrowing material from other libraries, and the University of Texas Library at Austin has been a friendly haven during holidays and vacations. Thanks also go to Miss Susan Goodwin for typing countless notecards and to Mrs. Julia Merrill for typing the final draft. My greatest debts are owed to my greatest loves — my wi f e and two sons. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT IV Chapter „ '^ . Page I THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE SOUL \H MEDIEVAL L I TERATURE , NOTES 54 I I THE IMAGES OF THE LATIN TRADITION 52 NOTES ,38 III THE IMAGES OF THE MIDDLE ENGLISH TRADITION AND THE DE- BATE BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE SOUL 7777777. I 2 I NOTES lb/,.-, IV THE BODY-SOUL IMAGES IN THE STANZA I C MORTE ARTHUR | 78 NOTES , 246 B I OGRAPH I CAL S KETCH 250 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to tine Graduate Council of tiie University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE SOUL AS A METAPHOR OF THE MORAL STRUGGLE IN THE MIDDLE AGES, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE by John Allen Canuteson December, 1975 Chairman: Richard H. Green Major Department: English This study is an examination of a popular way writers of the Middle Ages understood and presented the matter of moral choice. It is an analysis of the habit of medieval authors and preachers of reducing the moral struggle to a conflict between the body and the soul, the development of a series of traditional images of the conflict, and the presence of these images in an important nonreligious poem of the late Midd le Ages. In the first chapter I show the ep istemol og ica I and scriptural origins of the body-soul model for the moral struggle and the presence of the body-soul conflict in the writings of influential men of the Middle Ages. Because this conflict is a spiritual struggle represented analogically and therefore requires interpretation, 1 also examine modern discussions about the presence of religious meanings in secular texts and determine that the best tests for meanings which extend beyond the narrative level are contexturjl probability and tradition. The second chapter is a sur/ey of the most popular images used by the Latin writers of the earlier twiddle Ages to represent the in- ternal struggle between the body and the soul. These images are light- dark, fire, water, earth, burden, ascent, sailor-ship, husk-kernel, thorn, swine, horse-rider, inner-outer man; dwelling place with openings, vessel, ladder, knife, musical instrument, tomb, clothing, husband-wife and lover; judge, prison, slavery, kingdom, king-subject, rebel I ion, and war. The third chapter demonstrates the continuity and pervasiveness of this traditional imagery in Middle English writings of the late Middle Ages. While new images of canine animals, a game of chess, and the foul fruits of the body appeared, and while the images of slavery, the judge, and the tomb receded, the images remained in use of light- dark, fire, earth, water, ascent, burden, sailor-ship, chaff, thorn, swine, horse-rider, inner-outer man, castle, vessel, prison, kingdom, king-subject, lord-servant, rebellion, and war. The images of the body-soul conflict can be seen in the early thirteenth-century poem, the Debate Between the Body and the Soul , where images of I ight-dark, fire, earth, burden, water, thorn, husband-wife and adultery, judge, prison, master-servant, rebellion, and fighting add resonance to the central conflict of the poem. In the fourth chapter I examine a late fourteenth-century poem, the stanzaic Morte Arthur , which is not overtly religious in subject matter and, unlike the Debate , would seem to have little need for the images of the body-soul struggle. What we discover, however, is that the poet is interested in two types of drama: tine suspense of the action surrounding the fall of Arthur's kingdom and the drama of man's moral condition reflected in thai action. The poet draws our attention to the second kind of drama with images of tight-dark, fire, earth, burden, water, ship, thorn, swine, horse-rider, castle, tomb, musical instrument, clothing, husband-wife-lover, judge, prison, kingdom, king- subject, lord-servant, rebellion, and war. : CHAPTER I THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE SOUL \U MEDIEVAL LITERATURE In any age the ways in which men reflect on their condition are diverse and would seem to defy systematic discussion. When we turn to the Middle Ages, a period of a good thousand years, the prospects for finding definitive traits for the age are dim. Joseph Mazzeo has pointed out, for example, that no one now seriously regards the I^iddle Ages as homogenous, because it was too complex to be approached by way of broad genera I ization No medievalist any longer believes, without some qualification, that the Middle Ages was a period of cultural unity. We know too much about medieval skeptics, rationalists, mystics, and heretics not to be fully aware of the great conflicts which arose within the unity of medieval culture.' Nevertheless, Mazzeo asserts, 'There was a profound unity which overlaid most of the differences, wide as they were''; and he goes on to say that certain ideas, such as the metaphysics of light and the concept of hierarchy, are helpful for understanding Dante's Comedy . While recognizing the dangers in a schematic approach to a past period, Mazzeo analyzes a few patterns of medieval thought because they will lead the reader beyond topical allusions and biography to a richer appreciation of the Comedy . The approach allows Mazzeo to distinguish a pattern of hierarchy and light imagery in the poem: From the beginning of the Divine Comedy — ''where the sun is silent" — to the final vision of light, the poem is a carefully ordered hierarchy of lights and shadows. Not only are we asked to see clearly, we are asked to see qualitatively, to distinguish degrees of light and kinds of vision. It is in the i last canto of the Farad so that the degree of I ight is most intense and that our attention is called to a unique kind of seeing. V.'ith mounting intensity we are brought face to face with that light which is God, the supreme, pure, true, and eternal light. We see Him both as luce , the source of light, and as I ume , His reflected splendor in the universe of thought, the radiance which beautifies the angels and the blessed. We see Him as the simple light, the unity wherein Dante saw the reduction of all the multiplicity of the universe, substance and accidents, the scattered pages of the universe bound together.^ Only by assuming a general understanding of light metaphysics and 'hierarchy in Dante and his medieval readers can one explain this part of Dante's artistry. And, conversely, the presence of these patterns in the Comedy argues that Mazzeo is dealing with genuine medieval ideas. I would similarly draw attention to the fragility of conclusions reached by research in the history of men's thoughts. We are hundreds of years removed from the late fourteenth-century poet who wrote the stanzaic Morte Arthur , a poem I will examine later, and statements about the intentions of the author are almost certain to contain errors. Any single work of art is the result of countless decisions on the part of the artist, who in turn is molded by complex cultural influences. Our late fourteenth-century English poet, for example, was probably an Englishman; he was no doubt aware of the continuing war in France; he was certainly a Christian, but he may have been faithful or slothful in attendance at church; he may or may not have visited countries on the continent —the list of formative influences on his ideas and art could go on indefinitely. We are even further removed from St. Paul, and central problems in the thought of this very influential figure are still being debated. 5 One would almost despair of saying anything certain about the artistry and thought of past writers. 2 : But if remoteness breeds difficulty, it also breeds fascination. We are lured by the possibility of reconstructing at least minor parts of the influences on the artists of the past in efforts to understand their work. In order to find these influences we are forced to fragment and anatomize the past, to dissect it and examine it to locate the systems, the patterns of thought, which the age may not have known that it had, or which it only partially understood.

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