The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer - Book Report/Review Example

To what extent does Chaucer write anti-romance? You should discuss at least two texts that you have studied this year. Chaucer, best known as the father of English poetry, is well known for his descriptive and fluid portrayal of characters through poetic verse. A major and definitive quality of Chaucer’s writing has been his employment of sharp satire in order to depict an accurate and solemn picture of the time in which he wrote, that is, the Middle Ages. At the heart of his most well known and well renowned works, lies The Canterbury Tales. The tales are an assortment of various satires, romances, anti-romances, and crude comedies linked together by the frame-story, The Prologue. Among a total of twenty four tales, The Canterbury Tales also contains Franklin’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and the Merchant’s Tale which will be further discussed in this essay. According to Andermahr, an anti-romance is “a cynical, disillusioned mode which uses a more realist paradigm of everyday commonplace language to reveal the gap between (sexual) fantasy and reality” (p.81). Hence, we understand that anti-romance works as a contrast to the romantic genre by presenting a more real and practical sexual relationship. This contrast can be identified within Chaucer’s works such as The Canterbury Tales, in which The Knight’s Tale can fall under Arthurian romance, whereas keeping Andermahr’s definition in mind, the Wife of Bath’s Tale is a pronounced anti-romance. An anti-romance, further being a parody and a complete mockery of romantic conventions (Salzman p.270), understandably should then be an anti-thesis of a romance and in turn the literary devices found in a romance. Hence, it can be considered a snide satire which works to undermine the romantic insignia. Keeping these descriptions in mind, conventions of an anti-romance can be found scattered throughout major Chaucerian works, including the Wife of Bath’s tale. Simply considering the storyteller herself, we are confused as to how to dub it a romance. We are told that the Wife of Bath has been married five times already. Her love has withered from pure (if we are to assume that it ever was pure to begin with) to a vulgar, physical manifestation. The Wife is shown to us with an attitude much reminiscent of anti-feminist literature in which the woman’s gender becomes a twisted reflection of masculinity. This gender disorder presents another mockery of romantic themes. Such a woman, relating to us a story of a knight and his wife sets our expectations and presumptions accordingly. She becomes a shadow of the tales vulgarity which is to follow. The Knight of her tale is an anti-hero in himself. This is much unlike the beautiful, valiant, and virginal hero and heroines presented to us in classic romances such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or Mallory’s Mort De Arthur. The story presents us with protagonists who defy our notions of a Hero and Heroine who are in love. The Knight “rapes rather then rescues a damsel…” (Marshall, p.205). This action in itself defines the plot of the tale being one of an action requiring redemption. The notion of love and further being in love doesn’t have much to do in the tale. The lothly lady in the story may or may not be in love with the Knight. This is something we come to expect from women characters in romances. But all we can be certain of is the lothly woman’s main desire to have the Knight as her husband. Whether her motivation to ensnare him is out of love or not, it certainly is in the very least, to satisfy her own sexual desires. In turn, the Knight needs her only for his redemption in the Courts. He has no other use for her and tolerates her simply out of desperation. It is a relationship based on material and worldly needs and further progresses to end on a similar note. The Knight and Lothly woman are married much to the dissatisfaction of The Knight. His heart’s desire is a beautiful woman, which his wife is certainly not. It seems that the Knight is a fundamentally shallow character who has not really learnt his lesson. He has not changed his predatory ways nor been able to gauge any lessons of humility, shame, or respect from his year of painstaking searches. Again, this is classic of the anti-hero, who not only displays a lack of moral and social action and growth but also remains as damnable as was introduced to the readers initially. The end to the tale pointedly illustrates the discrepancy between reality and fiction. The Knight is rewarded with the lothly lady transforming into a young and beautiful woman to please the libido of her husband. On the other end of the relationship, the lothly woman, through her tricks and manipulation of the Knight gains complete control over both him and his estate. She hasn’t done any pure deed, namely loving him, yet is rewarded with her hearts desires nonetheless. The motivations are not noble nor are the deeds. Throughout, we are given a sense of reality where actions are not always dealt with deservingly and where love plays the least bit of importance in a relationship. The Merchant’s tale, tells us the story of the knight named Januray, who essentially buys his bride in order to attain one that is not only young but also pliable. This itself becomes a kind of mockery of romantic notions. In the Tradition of Courtly Love, knights are required to uphold specific ideals. They are to be gallant and chivalrous when it comes to courting women and when defending their country on the battlefield. They are to behave in strict regulations to both these codes of honour (Moore, p.69). January is an old man who is described heartlessly as one who is beyond his prime years. He is a foolish old man of noble lineage (his status itself as a Knight tells us this) who has been married to a woman of ‘low blood’. He believes that he is quite lucky to have had this match. In order to gain control he settles for a woman from a shady background. Ironically, he achieves neither things. His wife, May, on the other hand is a young woman who is left sexually dissatisfied by her husband. She engages in a love affair with another man, Damien, taking prude advantage of her husband’s naivety and later occurring blindness. She in indeed married to a knight but is only a pretence of a true noble woman. The entirety of her character is then a “mockery of the chaste courtly lady” (Moore, p.69). The romance, if we are to believe there is any, begins without true courting. A proper courtship between the characters would have established feelings and emotions in the characters. Instead, we are given a kind of wife-purchasing which leaves no room for major sentiments. Rather a cold, calculating approach to relationships, much reflective of the Merchant, unhappy in his own married life, who is relating the tale. It is clear to us that the couple is on unequal footing in more then one way, their difference in status being a very preliminary one. One has all to gain whereas other has much to lose. It seems obvious to the reader that the old knight is being treated unfairly and deserves more then what he receives. The end gives us a sense of bitterness, having been fooled along with January. The escape of the wife, May, from any substantial punishment again comes across as an inversion of romantic literature where all characters reap what they sow. Instead, here, the wicked (both May and Damien) have escaped from being penalized whereas the harmless knight has been cuckolded. Not only has he been cuckolded, but he continues the remainder of his life unaware of his unfaithful wife. The Franklin’s tale is another tale which on the face of it, seems to be another type of Arthurian romance; one where a woman finds her lover not in her husband but in another man. This archetypical story follows the format of the protagonist rescuing his love from an undesirable relationship with another man. The story begins with a courting and subsequent marriage between two people (Dorigen and Arvigarus) of equal stature. At this point the story seems promising as to the trials and tribulations faced by the married couple. This it does indeed do, but by introducing us to another character; Aurelius, a would-be protagonist, who falls for the fair Dorigen. The difference in the story arises out of Dorigen’s lack of feelings for Aurelius and display of utter disregard for his affections. However, Aurelius continues to pursue the heroine despite her refusal of his advances. If the story is to turn into one where the outside man comes to whisk away the unhappy wife, we are left disappointed. The woman in question is neither an unhappy bride nor an adulterating one. Again, Aurelius is not just a harmless lover. He pursues her despite his knowledge of her being already married, and hence belonging to another man. Further, he uses his sources and ingenuity to fool Dorigen into believing that the time to fulfill her promise to him has come. He uses illicit means to attain her physically rather then attempt to win her heart and affection. At this point, the would-be protagonist in perhaps a more conforming and alternate romance, would have attempted to win the heart of his lady. Instead of scheming to steal her away from a good man, he may have been scheming to rescue her from a cruel and undeserving man. But this is not the case. Rather, it is the complete opposite. The would-be protagonist now becomes the antagonist. This romance is a forced romance which Dorigen needs to guard herself against. Rather then indulging herself in an affair with a young outsider, she must do all she can to ensure that a relationship does not take place. The response of Arvigarus upon hearing of Aurelius’ promise is a definite deviation in Courtly Love mannerisms. These were “…guidelines for appropriate behavior” (Howe, p.66). These guidelines required that the chastity and honour of a woman was to be guarded in all matters and circumstances. Keeping in mind typical Arthurian romances, one would have expected that upon hearing of the dire situation in which Dorigen had placed herself, Arvigaurus would have physically warded off and perhaps even slain the antagonist. This would have established him as having heroically guarded his wife’s honour. Instead, he chooses to honour his wife’s promise rather than her chastity and gives it a higher priority and status. As the story has it, Arvigarus’ proving that he is a man of words, incites a generosity in Aurelius as well. He allows Dorigen to return untouched to her husband. Thus, the villain is not vanquished but rather won over. He regains status of co-protagonist by the end of the tale. Unlike a romance, there is no man or woman to be affectionately won over by any of the characters, and Aurelius, who does attempt to achieve a lover, through not so noble means, gives that up by the end as well. Conclusively Chaucer’s writings, to a large extent, can be identified as anti- romantic. His tales relating to and focusing on relationships between men and women occur indeed in romantic and medieval backdrops; however, they do not conform to the classic traditions of romance. The characters are anti-heroes rather than heroes, aspire to and look for partners not on the basis of virtues, but rather on the physical and material good they can gain through such unions, and rely heavily on manipulation and clever tricks to achieve their desires. The ‘happily ever after’ endings are marked with satire and convey a sense of achievement far from romantic ideals. References Andermahr, S. (2009). Jeanette Winterson. Palgrave Macmillan. Childs, T., & Moore, J. (2003). AS English Literature for AQA B. Heinemann. Howes, L.L. (1997). Chaucers gardens and the language of convention. University Press of Florida. Marshall, D.W. (2007). Mass market medieval: essays on the Middle Ages in popular culture. McFarland. Salzman, P. (1985). English prose fiction, 1558-1700: a critical history. Clarendon Press. Read More