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Re-Examining the Female Voice in Chaucer's Italian-Sourced Works: a Study in Paleography, Textual Transmission, and Masculinity

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Re-Examining the Female Voice in Chaucer's Italian-Sourced Works: a Study in Paleography, Textual Transmission, and Masculinity Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2014 Re-Examining the Female Voice in Chaucer's Italian-Sourced Works: A Study in Paleography, Textual Transmission, and Masculinity Stacee Bucciarelli Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Bucciarelli, Stacee, "Re-Examining the Female Voice in Chaucer's Italian-Sourced Works: A Study in Paleography, Textual Transmission, and Masculinity" (2014). Dissertations. 1252. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1252 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2014 Stacee Bucciarelli LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO RE-EXAMINING THE FEMALE VOICE IN CHAUCER’S ITALIAN-SOURCED WORKS: A STUDY IN PALEOGRAPHY, TEXTUAL TRANSMISSION, AND MASCULINITY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN ENGLISH BY STACEE M. BUCCIARELLI CHICAGO, IL DECEMBER 2014 Copyright by Stacee M. Bucciarelli, 2014 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all of the people who made this dissertation possible, starting with my exceptional professors in the English Department at Loyola University Chicago. First and foremost I would like to thank my director, Dr. Edward Wheatley, who has been an inspiration to me from the moment I began my progam. His excellent scholarship and leadership has driven me to reach new goals and to forge ahead in my academic career. He helped me conceptualize this project, and he continually supported me through its development, which has taken place over six years, two states, two countries, and two children. Thank you for not giving up when it seemed, at times, all hope was lost. Dr. Elizabeth Teviotdale of The Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University has also been critical in developing my continued interest and appreciation for manuscript studies. Her codicology and paleography seminars at The Newberry provided fundamentals that I carry with me to this day. Thanks also goes to Dr. James Knapp, who graciously offered his time to participate in this endeavor and to whom I am extremely appreciative. I would also like to thank Dr. Allen Frantzen who helped me in the initial stages of this project while he was at Loyola University Chicago. And finally, a special thank you to Dr. Pamela Caughie, who has been the backbone of our department. She has given me encouragement when I needed it most. iii I would also like to thank Loyola University Chicago for providing funds with which to complete my coursework, research, writing, and conference papers, both in the United States and abroad. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for their patience and understanding during this process. Particularly, I would like to thank my husband and daughters. Without their support, faith, and love, this project would have never been possible. I am eternally grateful. iv For Antonio, Gemma, and Violetta I sette right noght, of al the vileynye That ye of wommen write, a boterflye! I am a womman, nedes moot I speke.... —Proserpyne, The Merchant’s Tale TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I: THE MEDIEVAL FEMALE VOICE 20 The Real Domestic Sphere: Roles and Relationships that Define Household Rhetoric 23 Prescriptions of Silence 23 The Power of Wifely Eloquence 30 Idealized World of Conduct Books and Rhetorical Manuals 33 The Good Wife’s Voice 34 Ars dicendi et tacendi 37 Blurring the Lines of Household Rhetoric and Wifely Counsel: the Power of Female Speech 42 CHAPTER II: MASCULINITY AND THE MEDIEVAL FEMALE VOICE 48 The Threatening Female Voice Confronts Symbolic Masculinity 50 Masculinity Retaliates against Threatening Female Voices 59 Literal Silence 60 Literal Devaluation 64 Abuse 68 The Unavoidable Crux of Representational Female Voices and Its Solution 72 CHAPTER III: AUTHOR AND SCRIBE: MALE PRODUCTION AND TRANSMISSION OF THE FEMALE VOICE 80 The Source Texts and Chaucer’s Altered Manuscripts 80 Chaucer and Scribes: New Findings 95 Altered Voices 97 Chaucer the Auctor: “Who is Speaking?” and the Textual Debate 103 CHAPTER IV: THE MANUSCRIPTS 110 Case Study I: Emelye and Ypolita in The Knight’s Tale 112 Sources for The Knight’s Tale 113 Chaucer’s Alterations to Source Material in The Knight’s Tale 117 Scribal Variation in The Knight’s Tale 131 Case Study II: May in The Merchant’s Tale 137 Sources for The Merchant’s Tale 137 Chaucer’s Alterations to Source Material in The Merchant’s Tale 138 Scribal Variation in The Merchant’s Tale 152 Case Study III: Dorigen in The Franklin’s Tale 164 Sources for The Franklin’s Tale 164 vii Chaucer’s Alterations to Source Material in The Franklin’s Tale 167 Scribal Variation in The Franklin’s Tale 180 Case Study IV: Griselda in The Clerk’s Tale 199 Sources for The Clerk’s Tale 199 Chaucer’s Alterations to Source Material in The Clerk’s Tale 206 Scribal Variation in The Clerk’s Tale 221 CONCLUSION 239 APPENDIX A: MANUSCRIPTS CONTAINING THE CANTERBURY TALES (BY SCRIBAL IDENTIFICATION) 247 APPENDIX B: MANUSCRIPTS CONTAINING THE CANTERBURY TALES (ALPHABETICAL) 256 APPENDIX C: CHART COMPARISON OF EMILIA’S SPEECH IN TESEIDA WITH EMELYE’S SPEECH IN THE KNIGHT’S TALE 259 APPENDIX D: MANUSCRIPT COLLATION FOR THE KNIGHT’S TALE 264 APPENDIX E: MANUSCRIPT COLLATION FOR THE MERCHANT’S TALE 269 APPENDIX F: MANUSCRIPT COLLATION FOR THE FRANKLIN’S TALE 277 APPENDIX G: MANUSCRIPT COLLATION FOR THE CLERK’S TALE 300 APPENDIX H: LINE VARIANTS AMONG SPEECHES IN ANALYZED MANUSCRIPTS 321 WORKS CITED 324 VITA 337 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS MS Manuscript MSS Manuscripts MED Middle English Dictionary OED Oxford English Dictionary Cp Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 198 Dd Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.4.24 El San Marino, Henry E. Huntington Library, MS El 26 C.9 (Ellesmere) Gl Glasgow, University Library, MS Hunter 197 (U.1.1.) Ha4 London, British Library, MS Harley 7334 Hg Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 392D (Hengwrt) Ma Manchester, John Rylands Library, MS English 113 Np Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS XIII.B.29 Ps Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fonds Anglais 39 ix INTRODUCTION Much has been written about women during the Middle Ages; topics range from studies on estates and roles of women to examinations of female authors within the context of nearly every field of academic criticism. Through any given lens, it is possible to ascertain information about how a medieval woman lived, how she dressed, or how she behaved within the confines of her prescribed roles of daughter, maid, wife, mother, or widow. Moreover, the words of Heloise, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, among other lesser known women, provide ultimate insights toward understanding the lives of some medieval women. But research on women in medieval literature, though abundant, is often focused on broad questions of narrative. Missing from the extensive milieu of scholarship is an examination of the representational medieval female voice, a term that is hereto defined as encompassing the thoughts and speech of women in literature. Representations of women in select Chaucerian narratives allows for a detailed analysis of the medieval female voice within the largely male worlds (both actual and literary) in which they were created. Questions of female voice have historically been carried out within the realm of women‟s studies. Carolyn Dinshaw, to cite one prominent example, offers ground- breaking analysis of gender identities but fails to situate her investigation outside the binaries of masculinity and femininity. For example, she claims that “whoever exerts 1 2 control of signification, of language and the literary act, is associated with the masculine (10), and one of her most celebrated tropes is what she calls “reading like a man” (29). She also notes the “complexity with which language and literary acts, gender, and power are interrelated” (9); yet rather than develop the idea of signification, a representational world in which female voice is created and situated, she lapses into a discussion on the feminization of the male. Dinshaw might have taken that opportunity to explore whether her statement applies solely to male scribes and authors or might also be applied to the speaker of said signification, i.e. possibly a woman. Of course, it is at this point that discussions about the “masculine female” become relevant. And what might the significance be for a medieval female who is “associated with the masculine?” How is she, or rather, must she be, defined? In light of the onslaught of feminist theory, one might find it strange that this particular area is left largely unexplored. Still, one might describe the medieval female voice with the same language used by the field to describe the medieval women themselves; her voice is marginalized, or perhaps, even disregarded. One reason may very well be due to the uncritical, archetypal gender research that, as Albrecht Classen points out, denigrates women by categorically aligning them with Eve while propagating the belief that women can only spew lies (69-70). These viewpoints are represented regularly throughout medieval literature. For example, in The Merchant’s Tale, January‟s words on deceitful women epitomize misogynistic attitudes attached to the medieval female voice. He states: “Th‟ experience so preveth every day 3 The tresons whiche that wommen doon to man. Ten hondred thousand [tales] tellen I kan Notable of youre untrouthe and brotilnesse.” (IV.2238-2241) Similar reasoning in criticism desensitizes readers to the value of represented female voices in literature and prompts value-related questions.
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