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Reciprocal Generosity and Dorigen's Tragic Perception of Reality in The Università degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Lingue e Letterature Europee e Americane Classe LM-37 Tesi di Laurea Reciprocal Generosity and Dorigen’s Tragic Perception of Reality in The Franklin’s Tale Relatore Laureando Prof.ssa Alessandra Petrina Paolo Momoli n° matr.1013008 / LMLLA Anno Accademico 2012 / 2013 Table of Contents page Foreword 5 Chapter One Boethian Echoes in The Franklin’s Tale 9 I The medieval tradition of De Consolatione Philosophiae and Chaucer’s Boece 9 II Dorigen’s complaint about the rocks 16 III Dorigen’s derke fantasye and the compatibility of love and marriage in The Franklin’s Tale 41 IV Dorigen’s inner debate and the Boethian two voices 62 Chapter Two The Character of Dorigen 73 I Playfulness and earnestness in Dorigen’s promise to Aurelius 73 II Dorigen’s complaint to Fortune: her list of 88 famous women III The resolution of Dorigen’s dilemma: Arveragus’s trouthe and Dorigen’s fidelity 111 IV The averted ‘tragedy’ of Dorigen: the happy conclusion of The Franklin’s Tale 124 Bibliography 137 Primary sources 137 Critical literature 137 3 4 FOREWORD At the centre of the plot in The Franklin’s Tale there is a promise of love made by a married woman to her would-be lover, whose fulfilment depends upon the accomplishment of an apparently impossible request on the part of her potential suitor, which eventually turns out to be feasible against all expectations: Dorigen, Arveragus’s wife, swears to Aurelius that she will reciprocate his love if he removes the rocks which stand in the sea along the Breton coast – a task which she considers unquestionably impossible to achieve, but which Aurelius eventually manages to accomplish by hiring a magician. The promise develops into a test for the characters’ moral integrity, in which reciprocal renunciation contributes to the happy ending of the story: Dorigen, entrapped in the choice between a life of dishonour – either as an unfaithful wife to her husband or as a disloyal lady to her would-be lover – and an honourable self-inflicted death, puts the decision in the hands of her husband; Arveragus, instead of exerting his marital control over his wife and disregarding her promise, sends Dorigen to her potential suitor; Aurelius, moved by compassion for Dorigen and admiration for Arveragus, sends his beloved back to her husband releasing her from her promise; by the same token, the magician crowns the positive resolution with an act of generosity by releasing Aurelius from his payment. However, this is only part of the story because Chaucer indulges in the detailed characterization of the female protagonist by paying particular attention to the thoughts and emotions that inform her character in the controversial moments of the story. In my dissertation I have undertaken an analysis of The Franklin’s Tale starting from the assumption that the characterization of Dorigen may have been a matter of primary importance to Chaucer when he set about writing the story. Dorigen, in fact, seems to have given her 5 narrator the possibility to explore the inward dimension of a character who is drawn from literary conventions, but who defies sheer predictability. The narrator’s most personal touch in the story should be found in the degree of attention that his heroine is granted in crucial moments of the tale. While the plot seems to be carefully designed to show the gentleness of its male characters, Chaucer enriched the story by focusing his narration on the complexity which the character of Dorigen acquires, as well as the mixture of sympathetic involvement and ironic detachment with which the female protagonist is presented. By the end of the story, it seems that Dorigen, more than any other character, has deserved the happiness restored by the positive development of events. My dissertation is divided into two chapters, each of which can be associated with the two moments in which Dorigen takes centre stage, being granted the possibility of putting her emotional involvement into words by means of soliloquies. The two complaints have been a starting point in the development of my dissertation because they most evidently signal Chaucer’s use of ideas that are external to the concerns of the plot – ideas which contribute to the characterization of his female character, and which may have been drawn or influenced by other texts, Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae and Boccaccio’s De Mulieribus Claris. The first chapter starts with a general presentation of Boethius and the medieval reception of De Consolatione Philosophiae in order to explain to what extent Chaucer’s translation of Boethius may have been influential in his late writings. The second section of the chapter is an analysis of Dorigen’s first complaint, the part of the Tale that is most evidently indebted to the Consolatio; particular attention has been paid to the textual affinities between the two works. A further section is dedicated to the problem of marriage and love which is paramount to an understanding of Dorigen, as the story seems to associate her individuality with a dependence on her husband that is so strongly felt by Dorigen that it takes the form of a desperate obsession; the language used to describe the process of the attempted consolation of Dorigen’s grief on the part of her friends bears a Boethian colouring. The last section of the chapter tackles the problem of 6 Chaucer’s adaptation of the dialogic form of De Consolatione Philosophiae to his narrative and especially to Dorigen’s voice. The first section of the second chapter is centred on the scene in which Dorigen makes her promise to Aurelius; in particular, the alternation of seriousness and playfulness in her reply to Aurelius’s advances has been read as symptomatic of Chaucer’s peculiar use of courtly conventions in imagining the relationship between Dorigen and the young squire. In the following section, Dorigen’s second complaint is analysed comparing her catalogue of virtuous women with analogous texts, notably Boccaccio’s collection of biographies of famous women. The third section of the chapter is an analysis of Arveragus’s reply to Dorigen; his invocation of the importance of trouthe has been read as the presentation of an opposing viewpoint to the principle of death for the sake of chastity, which Dorigen champions in her second soliloquy. In the last section, the attempt at conciliating the tragic tone that characterises Dorigen with the comic ending of the Tale has been read as symptomatic of the importance that the role of Dorigen is granted within the story – an importance which seems to overshadow the question about the characters’ generosity asked by the Franklin as a conclusion to his speech. 7 8 CHAPTER ONE Boethian echoes in The Franklin’s Tale 1.I The medieval tradition of De Consolatione Philosophiae and Chaucer’s Boece Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (born about 480 A.D. in Rome) was one of the most important intellectuals and politicians at the Ostrogothic court of Theodoric when, being accused of treason, he was imprisoned, tortured and put to death in 524. He came originally from the family of the Anicii and was adopted, after his parents’ death, by Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, a historian and senator who belonged to the few families of Roman aristocracy which controlled public life in Rome. The power of Roman political institutions depended on the court of the Ostrogothic kings in Ravenna and the Senate’s activity was limited to the local administration. Boethius’s political success as a senator was crowned by his consulship – an office to which also his two sons would be appointed – and reached its climax when he became Master of the Offices (magister officiorum) at Ravenna, thus being promoted to minister of the highest rank. It was at this point that he was accused and sentenced to death. The reasons for Boethius’s charge of treason are not easy to define. A series of historical circumstances are thought to have led the court to think that Boethius’s political position could be a problem. In 522 the political situation was perceived as insecure: worries came from the lack of a designated successor to Theodoric and from the policy of ecclesiastical and political unification of the Byzantine emperor Justin. Boethius might have already been looked at with suspicion at the Arian court because of his support to Pope John I’s policy of unification of the Churches of the 9 East and the West. Controversies on doctrinal matters had been opposing the Greek East to Rome since the fourth century and had even led to Felix III’s excommunication of the Patriarch of Constantinople Acacius, causing a schism between the churches that lasted from 484 to 519. Boethius’s accusation followed his defence of Albinus, a former consul who supported ecclesiastical unification. Suspicions over him might have been fostered by some of the theological ideas he expressed in his tractates in the past because of his philosophical interest in the Trinitarian problem, but that had important consequences in the process of reconciliation between the Churches of the East and the West. His sentence to death was the second of a series of three: Albinus had already been sentenced and, along with Boethius, his father-in-law Symmachus would be put to death.1 Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae is believed to have been written during his imprisonment. At the beginning of the work,2 Boethius presents himself as an old man in distress, whose sole comfort is to go back with his mind to the happiness he witnessed in the past.
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