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

Temptation, Shame, and Guilt in Medieval . English and Dutch in Comparison

Relatore Laureanda Prof. Alessandra Petrina Lucia Baggio Correlatore n° matr.1185267 / LMLLA Prof. Charles Van Leeuwen

Anno Accademico 2019 / 2020

Table of Contents

Foreword 3 Chapter 1. Setting a frame of reference 5 1.1. Temptation, shame, and guilt in fables 5 1.2. The genre 7 1.3. The pedagogic function of 's fables 10 1.4. Fable writing in the late Middle Ages. 11 1.5. Temptation 14 1.6. Shame 16 1.7. Guilt 18 1.8. Conclusions 19 Chapter 2. Social Satire in the Medieval Netherlands 22 2.1. Origins of the Reynaerd saga 22 2.2. Ysengrimus: the wolf-monk 24 2.3. The beast epic of Reynaert the fox 31 2.4. A community of sinners 40 2.5. Conclusions 45 Chapter 3. Chaucer, Lydgate, and beast literature 49 3.1. The Pilgrims’ attitude towards temptation, shame, and guilt 47 3.2. The animal element 51 3.3. John the Priest’s tale: a retelling of the Fall 55 3.4. Beast Literature after Chaucer: Lydgate’s Isopes Fabules 63 3.5. The sin of greed 68 3.6. Conclusions 72 Chapter 4. Henryson and Lydgate. Chaucerian poets in comparison 75 4.1. Henryson and the Chaucerian influence 73 4.2. Henryson, Aesop, and the social value of the Moral Fabillis 76 4.3. Henryson and Lydgate: the theme of tyranny, similarities and differences 80 4.4. The figure of the fox in Henryson 86 4.5. Conclusions 92 Chapter 5. Esopet, a Dutch fable collection 95 5.1. The authorship of the collection and its main features 94 5.2. Temptation, shame, and guilt in Esopet 99 5.3. Positive exempla 101

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5.4. Conclusions 102 Conclusion 107 Riassunto 111

Bibliography 123

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Foreword

Temptation, Guilt, and Shame in Medieval Fables. Dutch and English in comparison is a thesis that takes into consideration a series of literary works, written from the second half of the twelfth century to the end of the fifteenth century. These literary works belong to the genre of the so-called beast literature, characterized by the presence of animals acting and talking like humans as main characters. The main representative of this genre is the Aesopic fable, but it is not the only kind of text I have taken into consideration. Out of six literary works, three are fable collections, one is a tale, and two are long poems. They all stem from cultural elaborations and interpretations of the traditional fable genre. I have analysed how the three moral concepts of temptation, guilt, and shame were developed in all the examined works. I decided to perform my research within two contexts, English and Dutch literature, not only because these are my two main areas of study, but also because of the cultural exchanges that these two cultures have often had throughout history.

The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first one provides a definition of shame, guilt and temptation, trying to contextualize these concepts in the late-medieval time setting. The following chapters are all dedicated to the analysis of the six texts taken into consideration, and to the attempt to find contextual examples of the different authors’ treatment of temptation, guilt and shame. Chapter two analyses the two poems

Ysengrimus and Van de Vos Reynaerde, both belonging to the Dutch saga of the fox

Reynaerd. The third chapter takes into consideration two works composed by English poets: “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” by and the fable collection Isopes

Fabules by John Lydgate, establishing a number of parallelism between them. The fourth chapter sees once again Lydgate’s work as one of the two main research subjects, together with the Scottish