ye oldeye olde

Direction of InquiryHow does examining gender influence the genres of

romance and fabliaux in the Canterbury Tales?Additionally, what are the interactions between

feminist and antifeminist perspectives in terms of genre?

“My question in this study is how romances [and fabliaux]“perform” gender rather than the reverse—how they construe masculinity and femininity, how they work out the paradigm of difference and the challenge of intimacy, and how they relate gender to other expressions of social identity.” (Crane 12)

Does this in any way conflict with Chaucer’s intent?

Feminism and Antifeminism

Original Sin: Death and woe were considered “Our “penal conditions,” as the fatal consequence of Adam’s consenting to the temptation of Eve. This also was widely understood as the dissolution of virilitas into “effeminacy” […] Literally, Adam the first husband abrogated his responsibility when he allowed his moral authority to be swayed by Eve. Allegorically, Reason consented to the seductions of the Flesh.” (Miller 400)

What does it mean to deviate?

The Wicked Woman (From Ecclesiasticus XXV):“23. And there is no anger above the anger of

a woman. It will be more agreeable to abide with a lion and a dragon, than to dwell with a wicked woman[…] 31. A wicked woman abateth the courage, and maketh a heavy countenance, and a wounded heart. 32. Feeble hands, and disjointed knees, a woman that doth not make her husband happy. 33. From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die” (Miller 406)

The Marriage CeremonyHer vow:

“I N. take thee N. to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forth, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us depart, according to God’s holy ordinance: And thereto I give thee my troth.” (Miller 375)

Her Blessing (the Good Woman):“May she be amiable to her husband as Rachel, wise as

Rebecca, long-lived and faithful as Sara […] May she be bashful and grave, reverential and modest, […] May she be fruitful in child-bearing, innocent and of good report, attaining to a desired old age, seeing her children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.” (Miller 381)

The Feminist?When we consider that such desire for the reform—not

the overturning—of patriarchy is represented as a woman’s desire, it is even more apparent that this is a masculine dream […] The Wife expresses a dream of masculine reading that is not antifeminist and a feminine relation to the condition of being read that is not antimasculinist—but she does so after having been bruised and battered, permanently injured by that clerk Jankyn, in the concussive renovation of patriarchal discourse. (Dinshaw 117)

This suggests that the Wife’s character is not strictly a feminist but perhaps resides in more of a third space. However, our perspective provides us room to look at how this third space created by her tale opens the door for us to critique and understand the sexual and gender politics in Chaucer’s writing—especially when we consider genre.

Elements of FabliauxThe Ill-Fitting Coat of the Fabliaux:

The fairy who made it put the power to discover false ladies in the cloth. If the woman who puts it on has betrayed her husband in any way, it will never fit correctly. And the same is true for maidens who have wronged their lovers; the coat will never fit but will be either too long or too short. (Bloch 22)

The above passage is from “Du Mantel mautaillié” which features over one hundred public fittings of this coat on various women. The idea of tailoring is therefore inseparable from narration of the story.

In this sense, the narration of the fabliaux also must go through a sort of fitting, its shortfalls can also be signified by either its length or brevity, and by what is shown, or concealed.

Fabliaux NarrativesThe Economy of clothing

Not only does the garment which should cover work instead to discover or expose […] but it constitutes an empty center of the story which it so strongly structures (Bloch 23).

Narratives of LackFabliaux are all in some extended sense

narratives of lack. Someone always wants something, whether sex, food, or money (Bloch 22).

Chaucer’s FabliauxCertainly, we see the narratives of lack and economies of

clothing thriving in Chaucer’s use of fabliaux, and these surface most immediately in the Miller’s Tale with variation thereafter.

Significant in this is how the notions of the good and wicked wife complicate these generic conventions. Undoubtedly, fabliaux by their nature are antifeminist because more often than not the woman is the object of desire and does not exhibit positive feminine virtues.

In a sense, Chaucer uses this genre as a vehicle to establish the antifeminist traditions that are so linked with the mode both through the characterizations of women, as well as the length and quality of his fabliaux, but he also leaves plenty of room to critique this patriarchy through his other tales.

Elements of RomanceIt had a setting peculiar to itself designed entirely for

the demonstration of individual prowess, chiefly concerned with the impressing and winning of a lady, and which had no other social or moral significance. Had the romance not progressed beyond this point, it is doubtful whether it could have become a serious genre. (Jackson 178)

Here, Jackson is referring to the writing of Chrétien de Troyes who wrote in the late 12th Century. Certainly by the time Chaucer picks up his quill, Romance had evolved to allow him more liberty to offer up social and historical commentary. When contemporary readers look at the conventions of the genre, specifically those having to do with courtly traditions, we can find further complications having of gender dynamics in the courtly romance.

Complications of GenderRomantic conventions seem to make the knight/lover

subordinate to the lady as he strives to make himself worthy of her. But through the courtly code stresses the lover’s ennoblement through love, it frequently masks motives much more pragmatic and self-focused: the sought-after lady becomes simply an object of male desire—in effect, a projection of the male’s most idealized image of himself. (Bisson 222)

Romance both does and doesn’t preserve the misogynistic nature of medieval literary culture. Bisson here highlights the layering of gender-roles implicated in the courtly romance, however just because the romance still undoubtedly favors the male does not put him in control.

Rethinking “Gender”Despite the dramatized tension, romances depict chivalric

society actively producing its members such that the self is significantly an aspect of the community. As important to romances’ version of masculine identity as the tension between self and society is the process of internalization by which men incorporate the constraints of community into their own identities. (Crane 27)

Gender as a social construct is certainly not a new idea for us but it sheds some interesting light when we read Chaucer’s romances. Specifically in this genre we find women in positions of power over men, and this shift can really be attributed to the predetermined regulations of courtly love because men are just as bound as women in terms of really how much self determination both genders truly have.

How then can we read his Romances?

This genre specifically demonstrates that in some way the delineation and hierarchy of gender isn’t only something that’s only detrimental to the women in Chaucer’s tales, men are also restrained (at least a little bit).

Especially the Wife’s Tale leaves us in that third space that isn’t quite feminist, yet we can tell Chaucer is toying with the idea.

Certainly we haven’t talked about the later tales yet, but as you can imagine, Chaucer isn’t quite done with testing the boundaries of Romance.

Some Conclusions about Genre

Certainly we cannot overlook the misogynistic nature of literary culture during Chaucer’s time, yet it is also apparent that he considers the roles of genders to be a bit more flexible (at least from a narrative perspective) to present a debate that carries forward from the first fragment into other tales.

The themes that are strongest in these genres like the boundaries for both genders within courtly love traditions and the revealing nature of clothing also seem to pop up in other tales and especially in the General Prologue.

However, although Chaucer questions patriarchy through his implicitly through his tales, its tenuous to consider his intent to be that of liberation when his tales inevitably reinforce the male perspective.

Discussion

Redeploying genre…Consider the rules of the fabliaux and romance

and apply them to Chaucer’s General Prologue.

Where do other narratives of lack surface within the pilgrims’ tales or characters themselves?

How are gender roles dictated by the estates/castes of the pilgrims, and how are pilgrims potentially in tension with those roles?

The Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales

We’ve really discussed these tales a lot in previous classes, but I’m curious if anyone has any additional remarks to add about the genre of these tales and potential complications you see in terms of gender.

The Knight’s Tale

How are characters’ expression of gender constrained by the confines of the courtly romance?

Do these constraints also influence the knight and other “masculine” characters?

The Wife of Bath’s Tale

How can we define the Wife in terms of feminist and antifeminist traditions?

What does this tell us about Chaucer’s intent by employing the Wife in the way he does?

The Friar, Summoner and Clerk

How can we consider thesetales in terms of generic conventions and how mightthey be classified?

Do some conventions fromother genres bleed intothese tales?

What can we really say about Griselda and the Clerk’s Tale? What was Chaucer thinking!?

References•Bisson, Lillian M. Chaucer and the Late Medieval World. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

•Bloch, R. Howard. The Scandal of the Fabliaux. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.

•Crane, Susan. Gender and Romance in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994.

•Dinshaw, Carolyn. Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.

•Jackson, W. T. H. The Challenge of the Medieval Text: Studies in Genre and Interpretation. Eds. Joan M. Ferrante & Robert W. Hanning. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

•Miller, Robert P., Editor. Chaucer: Sources and Backgrounds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.