Secrecy and Fear in Confessional Discourse: Subversive Strategies, Heretical Inquisition, and Shifting Subjectivities in Vernacular Middle English and Anglo-French Poetry DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Christine M. Moreno Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2012 Dissertation Committee: Lisa J. Kiser, Adviser Ethan H. Knapp Sarah-Grace Heller Copyright by Christine M. Moreno 2012 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Dedication...........................................................................................................................vi Acknowledgments............................................................................................................. vii Vita ................................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1 - Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 – Gower: Confessio Amantis and the Middle Way......................................... 52 Chapter 3 – Partonope of Blois: Secrecy, Inversion, and Revision ............................... 138 Chapter 4 – Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde: Fear and Secrecy in the Interstices ........ 228 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 322 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 336 ii Abstract This project looks at confessional moments in three texts from the late Fourteenth and early Fifteenth centuries in which the subjectivities of the central figures shift noticeably in relation to challenges to orthodox behaviors and beliefs, both on a secular and a sacral level: John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, the anonymously translated Partonope of Blois, and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. In all these confessional moments, which involve secrecy and fear, the interiority of the confessant and that of the confessor contour the confesssion and reveal potentially subversive and political criticisms. Late medieval English poets use the very discourses of the institutions under scrutiny in order to challenge institutional corruption as well as cultural, social, and political corruption. By bringing an insular mechanism to challenge itself, such as confessional discourse to challenge confessional efficacy, poets enable a dual dialectic in order to illuminate the inefficacy of ideologies, social and cultural codes and structures, and institutional hierarchies; once brought under scrutiny, poets can position various subjectivities through mobile figurations in order to posit reformation on an individual level. Secrecy and fear are the primary investigatory foci of this project. My first point of entry in exploring poetic calls for personal, cultural, political, and institutional reformation is through the institial spaces that poets open within the confessional iii moments in the texts. In these institices, secrecy shapes the nature of the dialectic exchange primarily through the affective response of fear. Secrecy itself is premised on a liminal distinction between self and others, and its etymology reveals, it insists on things being held apart intentionally and separate from the knowledge of others. Within this definition, will and desire work in tandem, although they are not aligned under the same impulse. This cooperation seems too simplistic when considering confessional acts, either orthodox or heterodox, in medieval secular and vernacular literary texts, especially when confronted with non-normative figurations, such as unknown identities, marginalized or ritualistic behaviors, and dissembling deponents. Questioning when desire and will come into conflict around the entire action of secrecy proves more difficult. As subjects come into dialectic exchanges with potential adversaries, lovers, or authorities, the impulse for self-protection begins to dominate the discourse. Fear shapes the discourse and compels strategic maneuvers of secrecy into the subjects’ reactions and responses, and consequently, influences and determines the subjectivities at hand. On a broader level, the texts examined in this project consider the way language, translation, and vernacularity also contribute to reformational calls. Division, inversion, and corruption serve as the primary points of disorder from which poets approach their reformational agenda. By blending the political with the ecclesiastical, and the secular with the sacred, these poets open a space for investigation, subversion, and/or remedy that begins with corruptions and deviances and moves toward reformation through good self-governance. The essential questions in this investigation of confessional discourse iv using the lenses of secrecy and fear are rather secretive themselves, encapsulating the interstices that poets open for reformational challenges: Why this text? Why now? v Dedication This project is dedicated to my children, Alana and Christopher, without whom there is no beauty, truth, or love in my world. Kindness, humility, bravery, and grace define them. I am honored to have their love, support, and patience through my journey. vi Acknowledgments My thanks go to my dear friend Larry, who sacrificed much in order that I might succeed, and to Rachael and Amanda, who lit the path so I might find the way. My deep gratitude goes to my adviser, Dr. Lisa Kiser, who never failed to advise generously and to support wholly; to Dr. Ethan Knapp who enabled me to believe in the strength of my voice; and to Dr. Sarah-Grace Heller who endured my hybrid French/English and cheered me on anyway. My thanks also to Dr. Christopher Jones whose deep integrity and humble guidance taught me what a true teacher is. Thanks to the English department at Ohio State for financial support and for wonderful teaching opportunities. Finally, thanks to Kathleen Griffin, Coordinator of Graduate English, who managed to shepherd me through forms, policies, fears, and tears with her brilliant smile and endearing kindness. vii Vita 1995............................................................................B.A. English, University of Colorado 2004...........................................................................M.A. English, University of Colorado 2005-2011..................................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University 2011-2012..................................................................Lecturer, Department of English, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: English Minor Field: History viii Chapter 1 - Introduction In this search [of the soul] the speaker experiences not only the insider’s conflict between concealing and revealing but also that of the outsider between probing and desisting – between the chance for self-knowledge and remaining a stranger to oneself. - Sissela Bok1 Shifting Subjectivities and Dynamic Self-Definition Secrecy assumes a kind of polarity or opposition and requires a dynamic tension or interplay. Of a kernel of truth that one opponent knows and might willingly hide, his opponent remains ignorant. The discernment of that hidden truth requires interplay of inquiry, the dialectic towards uncovering and discovery, between two subjects: the inquisitor and the deponent. Interrogation using a confessional model creates an intimate space with these two subjects that teases out a new dynamism of interiority based on will and desire. In earlier Middle English poetry, subjectivities were fairly static; a character was defined by his generic type, and his words and actions underscored or defined his subjectivity.2 Characters such as Bevis of Hampton and Havelok the Dane filled subject 1 Sissela Bok, Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation (New York: Vintage, 1989) 83-84. 2 Here, I generally mean pre-Ricardian 14th-century poetry, although the argument of when “subjectivity” is an applicable term is anything but static itself. In the subjectivity debate, I align myself with Sarah Kay and Sarah Spence, both scholars primarily working in Old French, who argue that poetic figures as “subjects” (that is, as holding subject positions such as Marxist theorists, particularly Althusser, posit) are prevalent in early 12-century French and Occitan poetry. Spence positions her argument away from the 1 positions as knights influenced by Anglo-Norman nobility, following the chivalric code, who discover their previously (and intentionally) concealed birth identities through heroic quests to restore order and centering on a maturation theme.3 This kind of subject role evolved from the Old French romance figuration of Le Bel Inconnu, a late twelfth- or early thirteenth- century poetic hero, who became modified and reworked in Anglo- Norman and English romances and transmitted through the late fifteenth-century as “The Fair Unknown.”4 The figuration of the questing knight seeking answers to his identity shaped a subject position that reappears in a modified form in later Middle English texts, whereby the chivalric code is de-emphasized in favor of the courtly lover figuration. Old French romance still provides