The Other Romances — And Other Writings
The four pieces studied above aren’t in fact the only romances in the Canterbury Tales. But they are the only pure and complete romances.
“Medieval romance was, among other things, a great civilizing enterprise.”177 The goal was to teach rules by which society could thrive. Mostly, the idea was to create “‘the means to regulate and refine erotic life.’”178 But how, exactly, should it be regulated?
As we saw in the Introduction, the finished Chaucerian romances aren’t typical examples of the form. The one tale Chaucer told that resembles a standard romance is The Squire’s Tale, and that is unfinished — many have suggested that Chaucer didn’t even intend to finish it; that the Franklin interrupted it179 as the Host interrupts the other mock-romance, “Sir Thopas.”
A complete romance, but of a different sort, is The Man of Law’s Tale. This tale — of “Custance,” or Constance, a Christian girl twice set adrift by those who hate her simple faith but eventually ending up back where she belongs — is a romance, but it operates on a different level, because faith plays such a large role in it. Belief is both the motivator and the cause of the eventual happy ending. It comes from a chronicle, but has been heavily expanded. And “Chaucer disengaged the story from its chronicle setting but preserved and even intensified the religious elements.”180 Would Chaucer even have thought of this as being of the same genre as the other romances? The Man of Law’s Tale is about faith, and that certainly isn’t the theme of the other romances, which aren’t even Christian. And the Man of Law’s Tale has a happier ending than the Knight’s Tale or Franklin’s Tale, where the ending is, in a sense, “Boethian” — propriety is maintained, but not everyone comes out well.
Sir Thopas, which Chaucer presents as his own initial attempt at a tale, is a romance in form — it is the only place where he uses the “tail rhyme” form popular in other romances181 — but it is also clearly a satire, and it has no ending; the Host interrupts it. It is, perhaps, the clearest revelation that Chaucer wants to improve the romance form. His romances will reveal a high theme (as does Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) and do it well (as in Sir Orfeo), not descend into the endless tediousness of (say) Guy of Warwick.182
When his telling of Sir Thopas is halted, Chaucer the pilgrim proceeds to the Melibee, a prose tale which is not widely esteemed today but which some have suggested was originally intended to open the Tales.183 This is an intriguing possibility, since the Melibee, for all its tedium, is a plea for honesty and self-control and seeking good advice — all essential to trouthe. It also stresses that wives can give good advice (the main point of the tale is that Prudence, Melibee’s wife, keeps him out of trouble) — a fact which gives trouthe direct social value, since a man who distrusts his wife obviously won’t listen to her! Which makes it all the more interesting that Chaucer assigns this tale to himself, even if it is his second choice.
The Physician’s Tale, with its horrid ending of Virginia’s father executing his daughter to preserve her virtue, has something of the air of one of the tragic romances — and, yes, there are a number of romances with tragic endings in Middle English.184 I would not list it as a romance, however; the motivation is too weak. I could argue that it is a tale of trouthe — or rather, of what happens when justice is so perverted that trouthe may no longer apply. For the whole point of the tale is what happens when justice is no longer available.185 Virginia has two options: immorality or death. Of the two, she obtains the one she prefers. The unjust judge, who has violated his office, does not get what he wants, and is set upon by the crowd. Virginia’s victory is small, but I can see how Chaucer might think it a victory. But I would not press this argument; the tale is simply too hard for moderns to understand.
The Pardoner’s Tale is no romance, but the tragedy is a failure of trouthe: when the revelers have found the gold, their friendship fails as “the first villain begins to play on the mind of the second by appealing to the very qualities of brotherhood and loyalty which bind all three together”186 — and which he is preparing to betray. Had the three stayed true to their trouthe, they would have at minimum survived and possibly even gotten the gold home.
The Wife of Bath isn’t the only wife whose story we learn something about: “the Knight — the reluctant husband of a poor, ugly, and aged wife — has the opportunity to transcend stereotypical male thinking about women. Doing so enables both the Knight and his wife to achieve the kind of marriage each seeks.”187
Troilus and Criseyde, although not part of the Canterbury Tales, is also a tragic romance188 — and it refers to trouthe more than fifty times. Of course, to Pandarus, and even more to Criseyde, trouthe has little meaning: “her conception of honor is pitifully inadequate, as is her understanding of virtue and truth.”189 Even so, Criseyde tells Troilus that the reason she yielded to him was his “moral virtu, grounded upon trouthe.”190 This virtue defines Troilus — he “is a hyperbolist: whatever his hand finds to do, he does it with all his might.”191 He serves as “a mouthpiece for the ideal.”192 He is a hero with all his soul, a lover with all his heart, and is faithful with all his being. More: “his trouthe, his integrity, makes him in the long run a more fully realized person. This integrity, the quality that he will not surrender even to keep Criseide (sic.) with him, is the one human value the poem leaves entirely unquestioned; it is because of it that Troilus is granted his ultimate vision. It places him, of course, in sharp contrast with Criseide and her untrouthe, and since one of the meanings of trouthe is reality, he emerges as more real that she. The sad fact that integrity does him no practical good does not in any way impair its value....”193 “Troilus’s tragic error, if such an error can be called tragic, is to have tried to love a human being with an ideal spiritual love.”194 “Even in the progressively darker world of the final books, he continues to play by the rules; to give way to his mistress in all things, and — even when most sorely tried — to venture little or nothing in the way of reproach.... Boccaccio’s Troiolo had been much more outspoken at the same point (F[ilostrato] VII.53-4, 58, 61).”195
“Critics have argued endlessly about how Chaucer expects readers to assess this love.”196 And yet, it is Troilus, and Troilus alone, whom Chaucer admits into his almost-Christian heaven197 — from our standpoint, very close to a deus ex machina, but in a completely Christian society, in which the unbaptized were generally considered to be bound for Hell, a substantial reward indeed. What justifies this? Surely, in light of Chaucer’s other writings, the gift is given for Troilus’s trouthe.198
The Legend of Good Women has been called, unfairly, a compendium in which “Heroines… exist for love of man alone; none can even think of either revenge or an alternative strategy.”199 Far better to call it a collection of tales of “women whose faithful love has never been put in doubt”200 — they don’t want revenge. In other words, of women who never strayed from their trouthe. It is true that Chaucer never finished the book. It is widely believed that he grew bored with so many tales all on the same theme. But keep in mind that, even though he never finished it, he went back and supplied it with a new prologue (the “G” prologue, replacing the old “F” prologue).201 This is one of the few clear instances of Chaucer revising. It is true that he never revised the Legend itself, or completed it — but the evidence is that he was still interested in the theme; he simply had no time for it as he grew old and the Canterbury Tales (which after all had their own tales of trouthe) fully occupied him.202
The short poem “Merciles Beaute” is thought to be by Chaucer although it is not attributed to him in the sole manuscript (Magdalene College, Cambridge, Pepys 2006). The last line of the first roundel (excluding the repeats) is “For with my deeth the trouthe shal be sene.”203 Trouthe, it seems, is not something that goes away easily! (To be sure, the final part seems to show the author rejecting love and counting it “not a bean”!)
We see something very similar in “The Complaint Unto Pity.” The poet has asked for pity, and will not receive it. What is his response?
For wel I wot although I wake or wynke
Ye rekke not whether I flete or synke.
But natheless yet my trouthe I shal sustene
Unto my deth, and that shal wel be sene.204
Chaucer rarely addressed his kings (he lived during the second half of the reign of Edward III, all the reign of Richard II, and the first year of Henry IV). His one bit of advice was “Lak of Stedfastnesse,” which ends with the lines:
Dred God, do law, love trouthe and worthinesse,
And wed thy folk agein to stedfastnesse.205
The Manciple’s Tale is neither romance nor very attractive, with Phebus’s wife committing adultery, Phebus killing her and regretting it, and the god taking away his crow’s power of speech because it told the truth. Here we see both troth and truth violated — and with it a moral: “If you have a truth to tell, you must persuade your audience to hear and believe it.”206 Which is what Chaucer seems to want to do with trouthe.
Many of Chaucer’s romances involve a question of love. The Franklin makes the question explicit: “Which was the mooste free?”207 — in effect, who of the characters in his tale made the best choice and was most noble? But the Wife of Bath’s Tale also forces the chooser to decide between seemingly-equal but different alternatives. We already saw that Chaucer rewrote The Knight’s Tale to give us two seemingly-equal suitors. Tales of lovers asked to make choices between sort-of-equals were common in the Middle Ages — a woman might be asked, e.g., if she prefers a strong or a handsome man.208 But they are mostly casual questions, asked for entertainment. Chaucer has made them serious, and the way he has made them serious is to add in questions of commitment and trouthe.