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I I 72-4509 HAINES, Raymond M ich ael, 1 9 4 1 - FORTUNE, NATURE, AND GRACE IN CHAUCER’ S CANTERBURY TALES. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan i THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FORTUNE, NATURE, AND GRACE IN CHAUCER’S CANTERBURY TALES DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Raymond Michael Haines, B.A«, M.A. * * * * ft it The Ohio State University 1971 Approved by i \avis Department of English PLEASE NOTE: Some Pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... ..... 1 NOTES TO INTRODUCTION.........................................................................16 PART I: FORTUNE, NATURE, AND GRACE.............................................17 Chapter I. F o rtu n e............................. 22 II. N a t u r e ....................................................................................66 III. G ra c e ..........................................................................................118 IV. Fortune, Nature, and G race........................................163 NOTES TO PART I ..................................................................................... 178 PART II: FORTUNE, NATURE, AND GRACE IN THE CANTERBURY T A L ES....................................................195 Chapter V. Fortune, Nature, and Grace in The Physician1 s T a l e ....................................................201 VI. Fortune, Nature, and Grace in The Pardoner1 s T a le......................................... .217 VII. The Unity of Fragment VI and the Tale-Teller Relationships ..................................... .239 VIII. Fortune, Nature, and Grace in The Canterbury Tales : A S urvey ..................................'.254 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................282 NOTES TO PART I I ....................................................................................284 APPENDIX: CHAUCER* S PARDONER'S TALE AND SOME OF ITS ANALOGOUS".......................................290 BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................305 i i INTRODUCTION: POLEMIC AND OTHERWISE In beginning any ambitious study, one is commonly at a loss. Especially when offering a new and untried thesis, one is tempted to launch out in medias res--to withhold the thesis until after the case has been force­ fully presented, to build to a dramatic or climactic presentation of what the w riter hopes is a radically new idea. But the dictates of efficiency and clarity demand an anticlim actic in itia l betrayal, removing some of the writer's hoped-for impact. And, besides, a writer can too easily become convinced about the "radical" nature of his thesis. Generally, then, one must admit, as I do now, that his thesis, just because new,- is not necessarily radical, and he must set out at once what he plans to do. In offering a different approach to The Canterbury Tales, as I shall in this essay, I am not really offering up anything radical. In fact, though my reading is new (what I shall say has not, to the best of my knowledge, been said before), it is traditional (that is, within a well- founded tradition of Chaucer scholarship). More particularly, what I shall do in this study is to suggest a new thematic reading of The Canterbury Tales. I hope to show that a hitherto unnoticed theme runs through many of the tales and can be said to unify these tales. In this sense, my study is traditional (see below, pp. 3-12), and it is also traditional (as I shall show) in the choice of the theme under examination. But my study will offer some new ideas. First, the theme its e lf has never been studied. Second, it offers, as I have said, a new form of unity for the tales. And, finally, by examining the theme in detail as it operates in one Fragment, I hope to suggest certain new readings. At this point, however, let me offer a disclaimer. In no way do I mean to suggest in this paper that my readings are the only readings, or that the theme I am examining is the theme of The Canterbury Tales, or that this theme is the only principle of unity in the tales. The older I get--perhaps it is, therefore, a form of crotchetiness--the less patience I have with the occa­ sionally arrogant surety of some scholars, who offer their readings as some sort of divinely inspired final state­ ments, especially when dealing with a work as complex as The Canterbury Tales. God forbid that my study should be read in such a manner. I offer my present interpretation merely as a_ reading. Specifically, my reading involves the linking of Fortune, Nature, and Grace, particularly through the three kinds of gifts. I shall propose that the three, which are linked together in The Parson * s Tale, can be viewed themat- ically--as a topos, sometimes e x p licitly , more often implicitly, treated throughout the tales. The mere presence of this topos in many of the tales gives them, I think, a kind of thematic unity. My treatment of the theme centers on Fragment VI (The Physician* s Tale and The Pardoner* s Tale), which I view as a focal point; and, as I w ill show, the theme unifies this Fragment. My reading of these two tales in light of the theme reveals, I believe, new facets in these tales, and on the basis of these readings I shall offer some new suggestions about, the tale-teller relation­ ships, All this may seem a bit ambitious, but I offer it in a spirit akin to that of Chaucer's when he said, And i f ther be any thyng that displese [my readers], I preye hem also that they arrette it to the defaute of mvn unkonnynge, and nat to my wvl, that wolde ful fayn have seyd b ettre i f I hadde had konnynge. (X, 1082)1 The Search for Unity The search for unity in The Canterbury Tales is a well-established and long-standing tradition among Chaucer scholars, and the search has led these scholars into many areas. In one of the earlier forays into this field, ? Frederick Tupper, in a series of articles, posits a kind of thematic unity resulting from an "architectonic use of the motif" of the Seven Deadly Sins; as he says, I have recently discovered that The Canterbury Tales offers us yet another treatment of the Sins, not casual but organic; that in several of the stories the poet finds these familiar conceptions of medieval theology so serviceable a framework that he recurs often to the well-known formula as a convenient and suggestive device of construction.-^ Tupper founds his reading on the "formal presentation of the Deadly Sins in the Parson's Tale, in due accord with the tradition al demands of penitential sermons" and on the "casual references to each and all the Vices in the course of the Canterbury stories."^ Tupper even believes that The Parson1s Tale "was certainly before Chaucer when he wrote many of his Sins narratives."^ But Tupper's views did not go unchallenged. In what is certainly one of the more interesting skirmishes in the history of scholarly combat, John Livingston Lowes, in "Chaucer and the Seven Deadly Sins" (MLN, 30 [1915], 237- 371), accepts Tupper's challenge, and he accepts, "without question, his [Tupper's] own choice of field and weapons" (p. 238). Lowes says he will confine himself "rigidly to an examination of his [Tupper's] argument on_ the basis of those authorities alone which he himself cites" (p. 238). A major part of Lowes's attack comes as a result of Tupper's assignment of a specific sin to a tale: In a word, [in Tupper's view] we have to do with the branches of the Sins, as a series of indexes or exponents of the Sins themselves, and Mr. Tupper's uniform assumption is that "every man of the Middle Ages must have recognized at once" the Sin by its exponent, (pp. 2 41-42) Then follows Lowes's long excursion through the sins and their branches or twigs in five of Tupper's sources (including The Parson's Tale), in which Lowes demonstrates that "The 'definitely fixed limits of variation' among the branches, which Mr. Tupper postulates, simply do not exist" (p. 250). That is, a p articular branch, such as hypocrisy, is apt to sprout from more than one sin, and one cannot conclude--as Tupper does--on the basis of a branch what the root is, because the categories of the Seven Deadly Sins are neither "rigid," nor "stereotyped," nor "strict." They overlapped and inter­ wove, and the same specific Sin appears now in this group, now in that. (p. 255) After defeating Tupper's outer defenses, Lowes goes on to breach the inner: he disputes Tupper's notion that a story once used as an exemplum for one of the sins could create for i t a Deadly Sins tradition (see p. 260). Tupper is utterly vanquished when Lowes disputes his readings of the tales, and Lowes concludes, Chaucer makes abundant use of the Seven Deadly Sins. He dealt with life, and life, like the categories, is a laby­ rinth of the Vices and Virtues. (p. 567) But Lowes is unwilling to admit "a formal schematizing of the Seven Deadly Sins" (p. 368). Tupper did attempt to ans\\rer Lowes, but, I think, not terribly successfully.6 Some years later, George Lyman Kittredge suggested a different sort of unity. To Kittredge, "the Canterbury Tales is a kind of Human Comedy," and "the Pilgrims are the dramatis personae" (p. 188). Kittredge sees, for instance,The Wi fe of Bath * s Prologue as beginning "a new act in the drama" (p. 191), and thus he sets out his discussion of the now famous "Marriage Debate." He includes in this debate the Wife, of Bath, the Clerk, the Merchant, and the Franklin--the latter supposedly con­ cluding the debate by representing Chaucer's solution (see esp.

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