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.
November 10, 2006
Metaphor, Diction and the Female Body in Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale (Practical Criticism # 2)
Medieval modes of marriage often prized women solely for the perceived worth of their bodies. Aristocratic tradition viewed the female body as a commodity, made valuable by its sexual desirability, and, of course, its ability to bear children. This system served to brand women as sexual objects and rob them of agency. In The Merchant’s Tale, Chaucer employs metaphor and diction to portray the sexual objectification of women inherent in the aristocratic marriage system.
The dialogue of Januarie as he describes his criteria for a suitable bride is in the construction of an extended metaphor:
She shal nat passe twenty yeer, certayn;
Oold fissh and yong flessh wolde I have ful fayn.
Bet is, quod he, a pyk than a pykerel,
And bet than old boef is the tendre veel (Lines 1417-1420).
Within this metaphor, Januarie identifies feminine sexuality as an edible object; he directly equates the female body with an assortment of meats, including both “fissh” and “boef.” This metaphor assumes greater significance when viewed in conjunction with the opening three lines of the tale; “And sixty yeer a wyflees man was hee/ And folwed ay his bodily delyt/ On wommen, ther as was his appetyt” (1248-1250.) In these two passages, therefore, Chaucer constructs a figure by which the reader recognizes Januarie’s appetite for the flesh of meat as interchangeable with his appetite for the flesh of women. This figure reveals that Januarie views the female body as a commodity that he will gain control of through marriage. He values women only as sexual objects.
The figurative use of animal meat to signify the female body is particularly relevant through Januarie’s use of the word “veel.” In one usage, the word “veal” refers to a calf raised and slaughtered for its meat (OED.) An extension of the metaphor of “woman as food” to this word meaning reveals that medieval women, like calves, are raised exclusively for the physical value of their bodies.
With this metaphor, Chaucer successfully establishes the fact that Januarie (as well as the whole of medieval society), values only the physicality of women. Because Januarie perceives his wife as an edible commodity, he robs her of her humanity. Throughout The Merchant’s Tale, May possesses little personal agency; she is sadly flat, her characterization reduced solely to her sexuality. Even when she breaks free of her husband’s control, her actions are purely sexual. She engages in an affair with Damyan; “Up to the tree he caste his eyen two/ And saugh that damyan his wyf had dressed/ In swich manere it may nat been expressed” (Lines 360-362).
It is not coincidental that a medieval merchant narrates this tale of women’s sexual objectification. The OED defines a “merchant” as “a person whose occupation is the purchase and sale of goods or commodities for profit.” By constructing his tale as the account of a merchant, Chaucer suggests that medieval marriage modes serve to commodify women and market their sexuality.
Through diction and the metaphor of “women as consumable commodity” in The Merchant’s Tale, Chaucer demonstrates the ways in which aristocratic, medieval marriage modes sexually objectify women.
September 25, 2006
The Construction of Gender and Power in Marie de France’s Le Deus Amanz (Practical Criticism #1)
A good deal of this is a repitition of my previous post, but nevertheless here is the most recent version:
The nature of gender roles in medieval society dictated that men were to be active and women were to be passive in every aspect of a relationship. In courtly romances it is meant to be either humorous or disconcerting when a woman performs an active role. In Les Deus Amanz, Marie de France inverts this tradition. Throughout the lay she employs diction and figurative language as mechanisms to condemn the artificial construction of spiritual and sexual power in medieval gender relations.
The dialogue of the king’s daughter in lines 82-120 is particularly rich in figures and significant word meaning. When her lover requests that she elope with him, the maiden refuses him; “Beloved, I know it is impossible for you to carry me, for you are not strong enough. (83). Marie manipulates the word carry,” drawing on several related meanings for both literal and rhetorical effects. When the maiden advises her lover that “it is impossible for you to carry me,” she is literally signifying his physical inability to bear her up the side of the mountain. However, she also uses the word metaphorically in order to signify a figurative concept; the spiritual and moral responsibility of a couple to support and care for one another under the dictates of Christianized romantic love. This understanding of the word is enhanced when the reader recognizes the “mountain” that the lovers must climb not as a physical entity, but as a symbolic representation of the spiritual trials that the couple must overcome through faith in one another. Therefore the damsel’s statement has a symbolic meaning that, when decoded, indicates that she does not believe her lover will be able to spiritually care for her. For this reason he must take the potion and endure the trial of the mountain in order to prove his ability to “carry” his lover before she will consent to leave her father.
In addition, Marie uses the word to foreshadow the failure of the young man at his trial and the ultimate death of the two lovers. In a specific usage, the verb “to carry” indicates the act of “bearing a corpse to burial” (OED). Ironically, of all the functions of the verb, this is the only one that the young man fulfills; he carries his beloved to her death.
The maiden’s dialogue operates in close conjunction with lines 143-219 (in which the young man’s failure to carry his lover to the mountain top results in the two lovers’ death) to reveal the consequences of artificially constructed gender-based power structures. The king’s daughter recognizes that her lover will not be able to bear her up the mountain by himself, and so she assumes an active role in attempting to assist him; “the damsel made ready, fasting and refraining from eating in order to lose weight, for she wished to help her beloved” (84). Her physical actions are an external indication of her faith and willingness to engage in a spiritual partnership. Her lover, however, refuses to accept the maiden as anything other than a passive participant in the relationship, a literal “dead weight” on his back. He insists on possessing the only active role, refusing any assistance from the maiden; “The girl repeatedly begged him: ‘my love, drink your potion.’ Yet he would take no heed of her, and carried her onward in great pain (84). The young man is not able to relinquish his desire to yield singular power over the maiden. He must carry her without aid in order to reinforce a patriarchal reality in which men are active and women are passive, both spiritually and sexually. The fact that the young man physically carries the maiden’s body, the essence of her sexuality, reveals that he desires to be sexually dominant. This unwillingness to engage in a relationship based on spiritual and physical equality becomes his tragic flaw. According to the dictates of courtly romance he possesses every quality necessary for success in a Christian romantic hero, for he is both “noble and fair” (82.) If he had he been able to recognize his lover as an active equal, then the couple would have reached the top of the mountain and fulfilled the test of their faith. As result of his failure to do so, both he and his lover perish.
Marie also portrays the male dominated medieval power structure through the conflict between the tyrannical king and the young man over who will possess the maiden. This conflict is a result of patriarchal proprietary views towards women. The king claims ownership of his daughter and refuses to relinquish that ownership to another man. Marie indicates that this almost incestuous possession of a daughter is not necessarily considered socially acceptable; “many people reproached him for this, and even his own people blamed him (82.) Despite social norms, however, the king is able to maintain control of his daughter by asserting his patriarchal right to provide her (or not) with a husband of his choosing. In one sense, the word “father” can apply to any man who has control over a woman’s life, be he her biological father or her husband. Therefore if the maiden were to elope with her lover she would simply be trading one father for another. Her father and her lover vie for the maiden as if she were a possession, objectifying her and attempting to rob her of personal agency. The maiden endeavors to claim agency for herself, but the norms of society and her lover’s adherence to patriarchal realities prevent her from doing so.
Through the events, figures and language of Les Deus Amanz, Marie de France contends that men and women should wield equal power in relationships. Indeed, this is the only way in which they can successfully overcome the spiritual and physical trials of life.
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