December 1, 2006
The Illusory Power of Literature in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale (Practical Criticism # 3)
In The Franklin’s Tale, Chaucer employs metaphor and setting as mechanisms to condemn the fictions of courtly literature. More specifically, he reveals the dangerous power of literary texts to create and diffuse harmful ideals of courtly love.
In lines 1189-1208, Chaucer develops a figurative relationship equating the sleights of magicians with the fantasies of courtly literature. These lines portray a magician conjuring images for Aurelius and his brother:
He saugh, whan voyded were thise wilde deer,
Thise fauconers upon a fair ryver,
That with hir haukes han the heron slayn.
tho saugh he knyghtes justyng in a playn (Lines 1195-1298).
The images fabricated by the magician are not random, fanciful visions. Rather, they portray common scenes found in the literature of the courtly tradition, such as hunting and jousting. We can rationally assume that these individual scenes serve as a representation of the broader concept of courtly love: the part represents the whole. Through these apparitions, therefore, Chaucer establishes a metaphor by which the images of the magician represent the conventions of courtly love. However, these images are not substantive:
And whan this maister that this magyk wroughte
Saugh it was tyme, he clapte his handes two,
And farewel! al oure revel was ago,
And yet remoeved they nevere out of the hous,Whil they saugh al this sighte merveillous,
But in his studie, ther as his bookes be,
They seten stille, and no wight but they thre (Lines 1202-1208.)
An extension of the metaphor to its logical conclusion reveals that the fictions of courtly love, like the magician’s tricks, are illusory and artificial. The crux of this metaphor, however, lies in Chaucer’s choice of setting; the magician performs his tricks in Aurelius’s study, “ther as his bookes be.” The inclusion of books is not arbitrary, but suggests a link between illusions and literary texts. By extension, “the magician” stands as a figure for “the author.” Just as the magician creates visual illusions, courtly authors construct illusive and damaging paradigms of love.
Chaucer further develops the association between artificial magic and books in lines 1123-1124: “At orliens in studie a book he say/ of magyk natureel.” Within these lines, Chaucer asserts that the art of conjuring is learned from books. Figuratively, the implication is that the artificial constructs of courtly love are also learned from literary texts.
Chaucer’s criticism of courtly texts assumes a greater level of representational significance when the reader understands that the Franklin himself is telling a tale of courtly love to his fellow pilgrims. He devotes his prologue entirely to the task of ensuring that his audience is aware of his tale’s source; it is a Breton lay: “Thise olde gentil britouns in hir dayes/ Of diverse aventures maden layes/ Rymeyed in hir firste briton tonge” (Lines 709-711). Therefore, Chaucer aims his criticism of courtly love directly at authors of courtly texts, such as the authors of Breton lays.
Within the tale, Chaucer juxtaposes the artificiality of courtly love with the continuous presence of nature and natural cycles. For example, the tale is interspersed with repeated allusions to the moon and lunar phases, as in lines 1130-1131; “the eighte and twenty mansiouns/ That longen to the moone.” An incomplete inventory of other organic elements found in The Franklin’s Tale includes the cyclical turn of the seasons, the sea, the passage of time (often by intervals of two years), and the perilous rocks that so distress Dorigen. By doggedly reminding the reader of natural occurrences, Chaucer highlights the fact that courtly games of power (such as the one enacted between Dorigen and Aurelius) are not natural, but are artificially constructed by harmful texts.
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