Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1961 Chaucer and the Theme of Mutability. Joseph John Mogan Jr Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Mogan, Joseph John Jr, "Chaucer and the Theme of Mutability." (1961). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 697. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/697 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertation has been 62—54 microfilmed exactly as received MOGAN, Jr.f Joseph John, 1924- CHAUCER AND THE THEME OF MUTABILITY. Louisiana State University, Ph.D., 1961 Language and Literature, modern University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan CHAUCER AND THE THEME OF MUTABILITY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Joseph John Mogan, Jr. B.A., St. Mary's University, 1946 M.A., Notre Dame University, 1954 August, 1961 ACKNOWLEDGMENT It is with gratitude that I express my indebtedness to Dr. Thomas A. Kirby for supervising this study through to its completion; and for his many helps and suggestions throughout most of my graduate training which "shul not here be told for me." TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENT ....................................... ii ABSTRACT .............................................. V INTRODUCTION ......................................... viii CHAPTER I. THE CONCEPT OF MUTABILITY FROM ANTIQUITY THROUGH THE MIDDLE AGES..................... 1 II. THE THEME OF MUTABILITY IN CHAUCER'S TRANSLATIONS ............................... 77 III. THE SHORTER POEMS............................. 120 IV. THE MINOR POEMS............................... 150 V. TROILUS AND CRISEYDE......................... 192 VI. THE CANTERBURY TALES ......................... 243 Part I. The Knight1 s Tale................. 243 Part II. The Remainder of The Canterbury Tales ......................... 266 CONCLUSION............................................ 305 APPENDIX I THE THEME OF MUTABILITY IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE .................... 308 iii PAGE APPENDIX II ORIGINALS OF TRANSLATIONS.............. 314 BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................... 324 VITA ................................................. 335 iv ABSTRACT In the Introduction to this study, the concept of mutability is clarified by contrasting the pre- and post- Progress attitudes toward change; it is seen that in pre- Progress thought the concept involved that of mortality. Five predominant motifs of the mutability theme are distin­ guished: transitoriness (which includes the symbol and the uses of fortune), decay of the world (expressed in classical and mediaeval times chiefly in the Golden Age literature), ubi sunt, putrefaction, and contempt of the world. Chapter I presents a documentary survey of the history of the con­ cept of mutability from Plato to the Renaissance and dis­ tinguishes the notion from that of mere change, exemplified especially in the writings of Heraclitus and Ovid. A brief historical sketch of the various motifs of the mutability theme are also presented. Chapter II studies and identifies the theme and its variations in two works which Chaucer translated entirely, the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius and the De Contemp- tu Mundi of Innocent III; and in another work which he v translated in part, Le Roman de la Roae of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. These works, representative of the Middle Ages, greatly influenced Chaucer's thought and pro­ vided a substantial amount of the mutability material which he incorporated into his poetry; thus they are indispensable for illuminating his peculiar sensibility of impermanence. Chapters III-VI examine the extent and function of the mutability theme and identify its variations (except putre­ faction, which never occurs) in Chaucer's works. In five of the twenty-one short poems the theme figures substantially, significantly in six others; in the Book of the Duchess, the theme of transitoriness at least tenuously unites the frame with the dream-vision and is used to intensify the loss expressed in the elegy; in the Parliament, the De Contemptu Mundi theme provides the contrast to the worldly and sensuous Garden of Love; in the Troilus, the mutability theme and its variations provide Chaucer's concept of tragedy (the de casibus type) and lend complexity of character and phi­ losophical depth to the poem as a whole; furthermore, the De Contemptu Mundi theme, expressed in the epilogue, and the transitory theme, implied in the celestial imagery of the love scenes, provide Chaucer's chief commentaries on life as vi portrayed in the poem? in the Knight1s Tale, the mutability theme supplies the substructure of the entire poem; in the tales of the Monk, the Man of Law, and the Merchant, the theme is interwoven into the plots; finally, it is found to appear, if only incidentally, in all but eight of the remain­ ing tales. It is concluded that, with the exception of love, no other theme is more predominant in Chaucer's poetry; yet in almost every instance it is the mutability of love which finally occupies his attention. This study finds, moreover, a perceivable pattern in Chaucer's uses of the mutability themes As his artistic scope became more and more oriented toward the world of experience, so did the transitory motif become predominant and the De Contemptu Mundi motif tend to disappear. If the De Contemptu Mundi at the end of the Troilus was religiously motivated, it was not unrelated to Chaucer's gradual moving away from literary conventions generally and toward the world of the Canterbury Tales. Theseus' speech at the end of the Knight's Tale approximates Chaucer's position in the remaining tales. The final reconciliation of his art and his religion is seen in his acceptance of a world everywhere colored by its impermanence. INTRODUCTION It is singularly unsophisticated to remark that the theme of mutability is perhaps the most persistent theme in all literature. Especially is this true of English litera­ ture of the mediaeval, Renaissance, and Jacobean periods. But then came the idea of progress, and the ideas of muta­ bility, mortality, decay of the world, and putrefaction were pushed into the corners of literature— only to be revived in the literature of disillusionment which followed in the wake of world wars and hitherto unimaginable scientific achieve­ ment; the god of progress is no longer being universally worshipped.^ Philosophers, writers, even the scientists themselves are demanding a reinterpretation of spiritual values; and while this reinterpretation is not intended to reproduce stoical indifference, the Gnostic or Manichean dichotomy of the principles of Good and Evil, or the mediaeval contempt of the world, it is similar to antiquity in this: it no longer accepts the Victorian dogma that "this is the best of all possible worlds"; and it is oriented to values which transcend both man himself and the material world. S. G. F. viii Brandon is representative of these modern prophets: We find that the further development of scientific knowledge since the nineteenth century has done little to confirm the optimistic doctrine of Man's inevitable progress . indeed, to the contrary, it has had the effect of exposing its lack of factual justification and of making obvious the intellectual nihilism which has inevitably followed the supplanting of the old Christian interpretation of the universe and Man's place and purpose therein by a discipline based exclusively on the data of sensory experience. The revelation of the in­ adequacy of the Weltanschauung of its optimistic humanism is exposing at last the seriousness of its gradual and tacit abandonment of the traditional Christian interpretation of life. The steady sapping of its spiritual foundation has left the edifice of Western culture perilously balanced on the flimsy basis of a few traditional sentiments. That the whole structure is in danger of collapse is the opinion of many men of learning and insight of varying schools of thought. Clearly Western culture must either renew its spiritual foundations and acquire an effective Weltanschauung, or else it must surely yield to that culture and civiliza­ tion which now battles for Man's allegiance under the name of Communism. But the question which here naturally raises itself is that of how far educated human beings would be likely to remain contented with a view of life which definitely limited the field of their hopes and fears to the event of their death.^ Certainly then the god of progress is being called to testify; and the scientific glorification of the material world is no longer without its dissenters. In a context such as this, therefore, the concept of mutability takes on much historical significance. ix This is a study of the theme of mutability in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. In view of the importance of muta­ bility in Chaucer's poetry, it is in a way surprising that a study of this theme in his complete works has not yet been undertaken. In 1915, G. L. Kittredge