CHAUCER's ARTHURIANA by Copyright 2008 Kristin Lee Bovaird
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by KU ScholarWorks CHAUCER’S ARTHURIANA BY Copyright 2008 Kristin Lee Bovaird-Abbo Ph.D., University of Kansas Submitted to the graduate degree program in English and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy _____________________________ Chairperson, Beverly Boyd _____________________________ Chairperson, Caroline Jewers _____________________________ James Hartman _____________________________ Geraldo U. de Sousa _____________________________ Emma Scioli Date defended: April 23, 2008 ii The Dissertation Committee for Kristin Lee Bovaird-Abbo certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: CHAUCER’S ARTHURIANA Committee: ________________________ Chairperson, Beverly Boyd ________________________ Chairperson, Caroline Jewers ________________________ James Hartman ________________________ Geraldo U. de Sousa ________________________ Emma Scioli Date approved _______________ iii ABSTRACT I trace Chaucer’s increasingly complex use of the Arthurian legend, building on the work of Charles Muscatine and William Calin. In his early dream visions, Chaucer largely mirrors his Italian and French sources; however, his use of Arthurian allusions diverges from the French tradition in order to reflect the negative attitude found in fourteenth-century England towards the Arthurian myth. In Troilus and Criseyde , Chaucer reveals the extent to which he is indebted to the French tradition by using Lancelot as a model for his character of Troilus. In The Canterbury Tales , Chaucer shifts direction, exploring the extent to which the Arthurian legend permeates fourteenth-century English society. Thus he critiques the attitudes of the clergy, who reject the legend while citing its lack of a moral message, and the aristocracy, who use the legend to establish a superficial superiority. At the same time, through his invocation of the popular figure of Gawain in The Tale of Sir Thopas and The Wife of Bath’s Tale , Chaucer displays the flexibility of the Arthurian legend to comment on contemporary issues. These two tales reveal Chaucer’s participation in an intricate dialogue about authorship and gender. Specifically, Chaucer criticizes his fellow romance writers in the former tale and offers his lone Arthurian tale from the mouth of one of the female pilgrims in the latter. The Wife of Bath rejects the traditional glorification of Gawain in order to recast him as a nameless rapist, stripped of his famous name as punishment for his transgression of female sovereignty. She thus raises the issue of female authorship, thereby complicating Chaucer the pilgrim’s professed role of compilator in the General Prologue . iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: The Fourteenth Century and Arthurian Politics 1 Part I: Arthurian (Dis)Appearances 14 Chapter 1: Tristan, Iseult, and the Dream Visions 14 Chapter 2: Lancelot and Troilus and Criseyde 58 Part II: Arthurian Creations in The Canterbury Tales 109 Chapter 3: “Sire Nonnes Preest”—Reading Lancelot in The Nun’s 109 Priest’s Tale Chapter 4: Lancelot Reborn—The Pilgrim Squire’s Warning 143 Chapter 5: Chaucer’s Arthurian Critique—Sir Thopas as Anti- 176 Gawain Chapter 6: Rapist or Raptus? Gawain and The Wife of Bath’s Tale 229 Conclusion: Chaucer’s Place in the Arthurian Annals 273 Works Cited 281 1 INTRODUCTION THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY AND ARTHURIAN POLITICS The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an explosion of Arthurian activity in both France and England. The Arthurian romance narrative flourished under the pens of such writers as Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, Thomas d’Angleterre, and Béroul, and the popularity of Arthur and his knights of the Round Table continued into the thirteenth century with the emergence of the great prose cycles: the Vulgate Cycle expanded upon Chrétien’s story of Lancelot and his love for Guinevere, and the Prose Tristan brought the legend of Tristan and Iseult firmly into the Arthurian circle. The Arthurian chronicle tradition in England, initiated in the twelfth century with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae , followed by Wace’s Roman de Brut , continued to argue for Arthur’s inclusion in British history with Robert Mannyng’s 1338 Chronicle and John Trevisa’s 1387 translation of Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon .1 Even the British monarchs participated in the Arthurian mythos during this time. In 1220, Henry III is reported to have received Tristan’s sword from Peter de Roches, bishop of Winchester, 2 and in 1282, Edward I received King Arthur’s crown at the Welsh surrender. 3 In 1344, Edward III made a vow to found an order of 300 knights, the creation of which was modeled on King Arthur’s legendary Round Table. 4 Considering the enthusiasm with which the Arthurian legend was met by earlier English monarchs, we would expect the kings of Chaucer’s day to preside over 2 similar Round Table tournaments. After all, as J.A. Burrow suggests, Richard II seems to have preferred French literature over English. 5 However, Burrow draws this conclusion from Edith Rickert’s description of the king’s library, which included “un Romance de Roy Arthure,” “un livre appelle Galaath” (a grail romance), and “un Romance de Percivall & Gawvn.” 6 As Richard F. Green notes, of the fourteen books which Richard II inherited from his grandfather Edward III, “eleven of them had been pawned or sold within a year of their passing into his possession.” 7 Green rejects Rickert’s claim that Richard II was a lover of French romance, arguing instead that the king most likely “regarded this collection of Arthurian romances and chansons de geste as very old-fashioned and hardly worth keeping.” 8 The majority of medieval scholars, including Roger Sherman Loomis, argue that the popularity of the Arthurian legend in England was therefore on the wane in the latter half of the fourteenth century; 9 as a result, the major writers of the period, such as John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer, refrained from penning anything beyond the occasional reference to King Arthur and his court. Whereas the Arthurian legend abounded in the twelfth and thirteenth century, in late fourteenth-century England, we find a dearth of Arthurian romances. Yet what does this paucity of Arthurian material from the corpus of Chaucer’s writings reveal about his attitude toward the legend? Christopher Dean offers one interpretation: “Chaucer and Gower in neglecting Arthur may not be following their own inclinations but may be doing no more than accommodating the tastes of the contemporary audiences that they hoped to please.” 10 Other scholars disagree; for 3 example, H.R. Patch argues that Chaucer’s failure to adapt the stories of Arthuriana reveal both a lack of interest and of knowledge. 11 F.P. Magoun, Jr., agrees: “That he cared little for the matter of Britain seems clear from the insignificant use he made of it […] I see no reason to believe that he was widely read in it.” 12 Derek Brewer carries Magoun’s criticism one step further, arguing that Chaucer’s attitude toward the Arthurian legend is in fact negative: “Not the Narrator nor narrators but Chaucer the poet derides Arthurian romance—it is one of the constant and notable though minor traits.” 13 Other scholars focus on determining the exact source of Chaucer’s brief Arthurian allusions. For example, B.J. Whiting, in his “Gawain: His Reputation, His Courtesy and His Appearance in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale, ” sees the fourteenth- century Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a major influence, 14 whereas F.P. Magoun, Jr., offers the Roman de la Rose as another likely source for his Arthurian references. 15 Joerg O. Fichte turns away from these well-known sources, arguing for the fourteenth-century Middle English romances Libeaus Desconus and Sir Perceval of Galles as providing inspiration for Chaucer. 16 Needless to say, for each brief reference that Chaucer makes to a character of the Arthurian narrative, several sources may be posited. When the Nun’s Priest mentions “the book of Launcelot de Lake” in his tale of Chauntecleer, for example, does he have in mind the Vulgate Lancelot , Dante’s Inferno , Chrétien’s Chevalier de la Charrette , or some other Lancelot narrative? 4 My approach to Chaucer, like that of Stephanie Trigg in Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern and Seth Lerer in Chaucer and His Readers , has been through the lens of reception theory. Yet whereas both Trigg and Lerer’s scholarship focuses on the reception of Chaucer by subsequent authors, my dissertation explores the ways in which the Arthurian legend is received by Chaucer—that is, how Chaucer’s Arthurian allusions reflect Chaucer the reader as he interacts with and consequently reshapes his Italian, French, and Middle English sources. While I agree with Dean that Chaucer, like Gower, is acutely aware of his courtly audience, I disagree with the idea that Chaucer was not interested in or exposed to the Arthurian legend. Instead, I argue that the Matter of Britain— particularly the characters of Lancelot and Gawain—appealed greatly to Chaucer; we see the impact of this interest in texts such as Troilus and Criseyde , and his interlacing of Arthurian allusions in The Canterbury Tales suggests that Chaucer’s view of the legend is increasingly complex as he gains confidence in and mastery of English as a poetic language. Chaucer’s use of the Arthurian legend, therefore, reflects the growing contribution of the bourgeois class in fourteenth-century England to medieval literature and social commentary. While I do not argue that Chaucer speaks for all of the middle class, nonetheless, his style and thematic content echoes the interests and concerns found in other bourgeois writers, for as William Calin notes, “We see in Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, Machaut, and Froissart the same witty, sophisticated, and problematic stance vis-à-vis court society” that we see in Chaucer.