(i like this essay, but if i were to write it today, i would trim a good 200 words)
Andrew David
Professor L. Reinsma
English 4225 Literature Capstone: Chaucer
June 6, 2003
A Quest to Free the Man of Law
Imagine John Grisham “in a medlee cote, / Girt with a ceint of silk, with barres smale” (GP 328-329) and you have Chaucer’s Man of Law. After all, the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales leads us to believe that the Man of Law is more than our ordinary
But somewhere between the General Prologue and the Man of Law’s Introduction and Tale our Canterbury-bound John Grisham sets sail for the twenty-first century and leaves us alone with an enigma. Rather than courtroom brawls, landmark cases, or behind the bench exposés, readers are treated to a moving saint’s life. In the transition from the Man of Law’s Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale we abruptly shift from a worldly exhortation against poverty—entirely appropriate for a man of “fee symple”—to the reverent glorification of Custance, a remarkable heroine who quietly endures agonizing sea voyages and hellish mother-in-laws (319). Furthermore, not content to simply provide readers with an explicitly Christian message of constancy in faith, the Man of Law continually interrupts his narrative to remind us of this spiritual message. Indeed, the tale related by the Man of Law seems absurdly incompatible with the character readers have come to expect.
The incongruity between the Prologue portrait of the Man of Law and his actual tale may represent more than a temporary memory lapse on the part of Chaucer. Other
Over the past century, literary criticism has approached such issues of narrative presence from two vastly different perspectives. In the early twentieth century, George Lyman Kittredge’s groundbreaking book Chaucer and His Poetry sent long-lasting ripples through the academic community by suggesting that “the pilgrims [of the Canterbury Tales] do not exist for the sake of their stories, but vice versa” (155). Grafting this proposition into their ideologies, ensuing generations evaluated the tales in terms of their connections to their narrators rather than the isolated plot that nestled within the tales. However, recent scholarship seeks to overturn Kittredge’s assumption. Writers like A.C. Spearing insist that many Pilgrims narrate tales that offer little if any insight into their own nature. Furthermore, such critics accuse modern readers of using Pilgrim narrators to shield Chaucer from any criticism concerning his tales, whether it be in terms of accuracy, writing quality, or modern moral issues (Spearing 725). These critics hope to return the primary focus of the structure and content of the Canterbury Tales to Chaucer rather than his narrators.
At the forefront of this debate is the Man of Law. Following the General Prologue, our first encounter with the Man of Law occurs in the Man of Law’s Introduction. As one might expect from a lawyer of his caliber, the Man of Law prefaces his tale with more rhetoric than his fellow travelers; rather than exchanging repartee with other pilgrims, he advances assertions about time, literature, and poverty. However, contrary to his Prologue credentials, the Man of Law makes a number of key intellectual mistakes. As he compares his forthcoming tale to other writers, his “Introduction […] and Tale are quietly networked with an interstitial pattern of errors about things literary […]” that betray a marked lack of wisdom and memory, the very traits for which he is heralded in the Prologue (Delasanta 291). For instance, at one point the Man of Law erroneously refers to a rape scene that is mentioned in Gower’s Confessio Amantis. He claims that Gower’s Antiochus “hir threw upon the pavement” and “birafte his doghter of hir maydenhede” (MLT 85, 83), but the Man of Law actually depicts a far more graphic scene than Gower’s tale—the very tale he is attempting to sanitize (Delasanta 292). Elsewhere he also makes mistakes with Ovid’s texts and some Biblical references.
At some level it seems that Chaucer must be at fault: either a character he earlier described in terms of wisdom and memory can’t keep a story straight, or Chaucer himself is in error. Such scenarios lead A.C. Spearing to warn readers against the slippery slope of assuming “that when Chaucer ‘misquotes’ or ‘misuses’ any text, it is a sign of his narrator’s fallibility rather than of the fact that (possessing a library much smaller than that available to any modern medievalist) he is quoting from memory” (720-21). Nonetheless, while Kittredge may put too much faith in Chaucer by proclaiming that “Chaucer always knew what he was about,” the literary competency of the poet’s other works make it equally presumptive to assume that Chaucer simply confused his literature.
Ultimately, the General Prologue portrayal of the Man of Law and the Man of Law’s Introduction leave us with more questions than answers. To what degree did Chaucer intend for the Man of Law to be inconsistent? And, what purposes do these inconsistencies serve? First, by returning to the General Prologue, one can argue that Chaucer erected the scaffolding for the Man of Law’s inconsistencies from the very outset of the Canterbury Tales. The flattering descriptions we read of the Man of Law are balanced with precise ambiguities: “He semed swich, his wordes weren so wise,” and again, “Nowher so bisy a man as he ther nas, / And yet he semed bisier than he was” (GP 313, 321-22). The repeated use of the term “semed” offers an implicit challenge to the very compliments that the Man of Law receives. Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine Chaucer stooped over his manuscript smirking mischievously as he subtly pokes fun of narrators like the Man of Law.
But the most menacing challenge to this view still awaits. The discordant shift from the worldly matters of the Man of Law’s Introduction to the spiritually laden tale of Custance presents a disjointed effect that is hard to reconcile. Those who reject the image of Chaucer carefully managing his Pilgrims’ every word, insist that the lawyer that is so “officious, pompous, [and] full of self-importance and legal jargon” in the Prologue “has no significance in the Tale’s narration” (Lawton 97). To such critics, the Man of Law’s Tale might be more appropriately referred to as The Tale of Custance, or even Chaucer’s Tale.
However, by highlighting the Man of Law’s suprisingly active role in telling this tale—albeit a strangely inappropriate tale—other critics make a masterful start to rescuing the Kittredgeian view in light of the Man of Law’s Tale. While most scholars acknowledge this contradiction, there are varying approaches to its explanation. Drawing upon the Tale’s excessive use of apostrophe and narrative interruption, critics have painted a picture of the Man of Law as “more than just another story teller among the
Moreover, in pairing the Man of Law with such a tale, Chaucer may be subverting the pilgrim’s intentions by bringing his hypocritical posturing to light and setting the Man of Law in direct contrast with his protagonist, Custance. To this end, Ann Astell offers a characteristic summary of how critics attempt to redeem the disparity between the Man of Law and his tale: “Chaucer’s satire, with its disparate voices, […] call[s] for reform […] by permitting Custance herself to speak despite the windiness of her self-appointed spokesman. And that quiet voice, articulating a practical belief in divine providence, manages to be heard” (97). In fact, according to such critics, it is the “windiness” of the Man of Law that highlights the quiet message of devotion, which underlies the tale.
While this may be the standard rendering of the Man of Law by the progeny of Kittredge, other portraits of the lawyer muddy this seemingly straightforward interpretation. In fact, Joseph Grennen swings wildly in the opposite direction. He asserts that “it is hard to believe that it [the tale of Custance] is meant to reflect badly on the lawyer” (501). Instead, Grennen praises him as a “devotee of justice in some ideal order […] rather than a legal technician grown wealthy through sharp practices” (501). Likewise, Walter Scheps characterizes the Man of Law as Custance’s “advocate,” protecting her by “lamenting the treatment accorded her, anticipating objections, and vilifying enemies” (qtd. in Harty 368).
To the company of this learned Man of Law and the more lawyer-like Man of Law, other critics add a third Man of Law who is ultimately transformed in the storytelling process. In the most moving of interpretations, Robert Finnegan suggests that the Man of Law begins the tale with pompous “self-promotion” but is so humbled by Custance’s unshakable faith that he is converted (227, 240). As evidence for this surprising twist, Finnegan suggests that the aforementioned abundance of narratorial digressions experiences an importance shift in the latter half of the tale. Rather than showing off his rhetorical skills, the Man of Law’s asides seek an escape from telling his tale as he pleads with the pilgrims: “I pray yow alle my labour to relesse; […] I am so wery for to speke of sorowe” (MLT 1069, 1071). Finnegan suggests that the Man of Law ultimately loses control of his narrative; he attempts to write a happy ending, but the facts keep getting in the way (237-38). Thus, the final lines in which the Man of Law cries out to God, “Jhesu Crist, that of his myght may sende / Joye after wo, governe us in his grace / And kepe us alle that been in this place!” can be read as sincere (1160-1162).
In effect, these explanations for the disjunction between the Man of Law and his tale serve the role that one might expect from the Man of Law: they launch convincing, textually based arguments worthy of the finest of courtrooms. Nevertheless, they can’t quite get their stories straight. Like the New Testament apostles, the various literary critics read the same story but arrive at something slightly different. To this end, A.C. Spearing refers to such interpretations as “absurd” (725). He suggests that such interpretations can be construed as creative but not necessarily accurate. Moreover, he prods readers to take a more historical view that recognizes that “in the medieval period […] the normal assumption seems to have been not that every story expresses an individual human consciousness but that stories have a kind of autonomous existence in a realm of their own (728). Therefore, according to Spearing, by creating such elaborate interrelations between tales and tellers, we unconsciously impose modern sensibilities upon medieval literature. In fact, the diversity of interpretations concerning the Man of Law and his relation to his tale may be sufficient evidence that creativity has taken the place of legitimate historical criticism.
Unfortunately, the star-witness to the narratorial debate is unavailable. Chaucer did not leave behind any explanation on the role of his narrators in their tales. Thus, it may be impossible to distinguish his actual design for such pilgrims as the Man of Law. Furthermore, despite medieval literature’s unfamiliarity with relating tellers to tales, even Spearing accepts that Chaucer was on the cutting edge of such techniques. Still, this process was only in its infancy. Thus, without a word from Chaucer, we cannot fit his work into particular interpretive frames. As Derek Pearsall suggests, “to suppose that the Tales are always or never dramatically conceived would be to restore Chaucer to the straitjacket he struggled so hard to escape” (45).
But then, practically speaking, how can we as readers prevent ourselves from becoming caught in a head-scratching flux between these two points? Chaucer’s text speaks for itself: the reason for the vast array of opinions concerning narratorial role, or lack thereof, is Chaucer’s characteristic ambiguity. He bequeaths us characters with enough maneuvering room that we as readers can develop our own understanding of the text. Historical context is important, but unlike the spoken word, literature grows beyond its original form. Thus, while a back-from-the-dead interview with Chaucer might fit most snugly with Spearing’s conservative view of tales and tellers, interpretation is forevermore out of Chaucer’s hands. Instead, it resides in the capable hands of his characters, his critics, and, ultimately, his readers.
Works Cited
Astell, Ann W. “Apostrophe, Prayer, and the Structure of Satire in The Man of Law’s
Tale.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer. Ed. Thomas J. Heffernan. Vol. 13.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The
Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Delasanta, Rodney. “And of Great Reverence: Chaucer’s Man of Law.” The Chaucer
Review 5 (1971): 288-310.
Finnegan, Robert Emmett. “The Man of Law, His Tale, and the Pilgrims.”
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 77 (1976): 227-40.
Grennen, Joseph E. “Chaucer’s Man of Law and the Constancy of Justice.” Journal of
English and Germanic Philology 84.4 (1985): 498-514.
Harty, Kevin J. “The Tale and Its Teller: The Case of Chaucer’s Man of Law.” The
American Benedictine Review 34.4 (1983): 361-71.
Kittredge, George Lyman. Chaucer and His Poetry.
Press, 1915.
Lawton, David. Chaucer’s Narrators.
Pearsall, Derek. The
Unwin, 1985.
Spearing, A.C. “Narrative Voice: The Case of Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale.” New
Literary History 32 (2001): 715-746.
Wood, Chauncey. Chaucer and the Country of the Stars: Poetic Uses of Astrological
Imagery. Princeton:
No comments:
Post a Comment