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Character and Action in the Case of Criseyde
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
A good deal of attention has been devoted to the question of Chaucer's intention when he created the character of Criseyde. Almost all answers have as their starting point a common assumption: that Chaucer was doing his best to create a unified character in the modern sense of the phrase. They start, that is, from the assumption that Chaucer meant Criseyde's character and actions to appear all of a piece and from the fact that he made her false to Troilus in the end. Only two conclusions are possible on the basis of these premises: either Chaucer intended Criseyde's character to appear compatible with her betrayal of Troilus from the first, or he intended it to appear to change during the course of the narrative in response to the events. The first of these conclusions, with its assumption as to Chaucer's conception of things, is the one most frequently encountered.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1939
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1 “The author's intention” is of course a fiction; his actual intention is something one can never, in any exact sense, know, and is perhaps not really relevant to the meaning of the poem. But it is a convenient fiction, not simply because the nature of language makes it difficult to avoid, but because it indicates that the purpose of this analysis is to suggest the response which the structure of the poem seems to require. Analysis may have other purposes, and in so far as the analyses discussed below do have other purposes, justice is not done them in this essay.
2 v, 825.—All references are to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, ed. R. K. Root (Princeton, 1926).
3 The Poetry of Chaucer (Cambridge, 1922), p. 114. “Slydynge of corage” is interpreted as meaning emotionally shallow and inclined to be fickle (see Professor Root's note to this line in his edition of the poem).
4 The passage in question is quoted on page 69. Nor does it seem probable that anyone reading Criseyde's remark in her first soliloquy, “It nedeth me ful sleighly for to pleie” (ii, 462), in its context would interpret it as evidence that she was calculating in the pejorative sense. Sleighly may mean “guilefully” or “wisely.” But in this instance the context as a whole and two of the texts (which read wisly) show that the meaning was “wisely.” Her later words, plainly an elaboration of this line, clinch the matter: But natheles, with goddes governaunce,
I shal so doon, myn honour shal I kepe,
And ek his [i.e., Pandar's] lif.
As Mr. C. S. Lewis has said, “If we are determined to criticize her behaviour in the first part of the poem from any standpoint save that of Christian chastity, it wouldbe more rational to say that she is not wanton enough, not calculating enough.” The Allegory of Love (Oxford, 1936), p. 183.
5 Or if one wants Chaucer's own adjectives, sobre, symple, wys, tendre herted. (v, 820–825; the passage is quoted on p. 69.)
6 Chaucer and his Poetry (Cambridge, 1915), p. 135. “Baffling alike to us and to herself” (ibid., p. 126), he adds elsewhere, as if Chaucer intended us not to be able to understand her.
7 ii, 673–679.
8 Mr. C. S. Lewis's more recent analysis of the meaning of Criseyde (The Allegory of Love, pp. 179–190) is of this general type. According to Mr. Lewis we are meant to see Criseyde as from beginning to end governed by an almost pathological fear (“a dash of what is now called mazochism”); this theory leads him to argue that Chaucer meant the reader to see Criseyde's remarks at the last meeting of the lovers as “desperate speeches in which Creseide, with pitiful ignorance of her self, attempts to assume the role of comforter . . .” and that he meant her resolutions to return to Troy after she had reached the Greek camp to be seen by the reader as “desperate efforts to rise above herself.“
9 “Emphasis cannot be too strong when placed upon the fact that in Troilus and Criseyde an absolutely inescapable necessity governs the progress of the story.” W. C. Curry, “Destiny in Chaucer's Troilus,” PMLA, xlv (1930), 152.
10 The allied problem of the connection between Chaucer's conception of character on the one hand and of Fortune and Destiny on the other is far too complex to be taken up here. But see W. C. Curry, “Destiny in Chaucer's Troilus,” PMLA, xlv (1930), 129–168; H. R. Patch, “Troilus on Determinism,” Speculum, vi (1931), 225–243; and William Farn-ham, The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy (Berkeley, 1936), especially pp. 155–157. Professor Patch, if I understand him correctly, argues that any narrative in which there is not “the interplay of free motivation” is “the spectacle of the action of irresponsible puppets.” If this line of reasoning be valid, then it must follow from the argument of this essay that Chaucer was a complete determinist, a conclusion which is certainly open to question. But Professor Patch's line of reasoning seems to me not only to involve a confusion of literal and metaphorical statements (it is only, by metaphor that one can speak meaningfully of any characters as “irresponsible puppets” since literally speaking all characters are just that) but also to over-simplify the problem by assuming that there must be a direct connection between an author's narrative method and his philosophic opinions. Some kind of connection no doubt always exists, but surely it is not such that one can conclude that all narratives except those which provide a tight cause-and-effect relationship between the characters and the events are evidence of their author's disbelief in the freedom of the human will and the responsibility of human beings for their own acts.
11 I cannot, for example, believe that we are intended to draw any conclusion as to character from the fact that Chaucer puts into Criseyde's mouth learned arguments borrowed from Boethius (e.g., iii, 813–826).
12 This is not to say, of course, that they do not fall in love, become unhappy, or change their opinions from time to time as the story may demand. It is to say that the basic set of characteristics given them at the beginning remains unchanged through these varying circumstances of the story to the end.
13 The point is discussed below.
14 Consider, for example, the splendid tragic irony of Criseyde's anxious apology for what she says at the lovers' last meeting in Troy (iv, 1282–95. That Chaucer did not intend Criseyde to appear hypocritical here is evident from iv, 1415–21). The speech is completely in character in Chaucer's sense of the word; that is, it fits precisely Criseyde's already established characteristics of reasonableness and patient affection. According to the modern conception of character, however, the speech is impossible. Criseyde has no motive whatsoever, either in Troilus's character or in her own so far as Chaucer has presented them to us, for expecting Troilus to object to plans which will bring them new hope.
15 v, 820–825.
16 See Karl Young, “Chaucer's ‘Troilus and Criseyde’ as Romance,” PMLA, liii (1938), p. 39.
17 ii, 253–254.
18 ii, 38. The references to Boccaccio are to The Filostrato of Giovanni Boccaccio, trans. N. E. Griffin and A. B. Myrick (Philadelphia, 1929).
19 ii, 499–502. Note, further, the implications of line 505.
20 ii, 55.
21 See note 4. Professor Root, indeed, takes it as evidence of both “cool calculation” and a tendency to drift into things. Op. cit., p. 108.
22 And only, too, if one ignores the convention whereby the soliloquy is used to convey information which the character could not or ought not to be aware of. Cp. Pandar's thoughts (ii, 267–273), which are certainly not intended to make us think him “calculating.“
23 ii, 711.
24 ii, 83.
25 ii, 666–679, 1265–74.
26 ii, 65 ff.
27 ii, 673–675. For Criseyde to fall deeply in love with Troilus immediately would be shockingly indecorous according to the courtly love code. In other words, if she is to appear an admirable person, the reader must be made to believe she fell in love slowly.
28 ii, 651.
29 Professor Kittredge has described perfectly the effect Chaucer was aiming at. Op. cit., p. 133.
30 “For the character of Criseyde as Chaucer has conceived it, such a course of action [i.e., yielding at once] would have been much too direct. It would have required a definite decision instead of a genial drifting with circumstance.” R. K. Root, op. cit., p. 109.
31 ii, 1128–41.
She wente allone, and gan hire herte unfettre
Out of the desdaynes prison but a lite (ii, 1216–17).
33 ii, 113.
34 ii, 1159–63.
35 ii, 1265–74. Note that it is here Chaucer translates the phrases Boccaccio used to describe Criseyde's first sight of Troilus (Boccaccio's words are quoted on p. 71).
36 iii, 85–86.
37 iii, 155–182. “Her surrender is conscious and voluntary; for she is neither ignorant nor unsophisticated.” G. L. Kittredge, op. cit., pp. 131–132.
38 iii, 750 ff.
39 iii, 568–581. This theory is based on the assumption that ii, 575–581, are ironic (G. L. Kittredge, op. cit., p. 132; R. K. Root, op. cit., p. 111). But cp., ii, 640–644.
40 iii, 799–945.
41 In addition, the reader has Chaucer's own word for it that Criseyde was not playing at being anxious—for example, in iii, 799–801, and particularly in iii, 918–924. “The belief that she saw through the wiles of Pandarus, and only appeared to be led by circumstances while in fact she went the way she had intended from the beginning, can be held only in defiance of the text.” C. S. Lewis, op. cit., p. 182.
Now certes, em, tomorwe, and I hym se,
I shal of that as ful excusen me, etc. (iii, 809–810).
43 Her hesitancy is not, of course, on the grounds that she considers surrender immoral, but, in accordance with courtly love doctrines, on the grounds of some lingering doubt as to Troilus's trustworthiness (iii, 1226–39).
44 iii, 1107–13.
45 iii, 1210–11.
46 iii, 848–849.
47 Joseph M. Beatty, Jr., “Mr. Graydon's ‘Defense of Criseyde’,” SP, xxvi (1929), 472.
48 Kittredge, G. L., op. cit., p. 133.Google Scholar
49 iv, 1415–21, v, 19–21. “If any grief that poetry tells of was ever sincere, then so was Cryseide's grief at leaving Troilus.” C. S. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 184–185.
50 iv, 771–784 and 897–903.
51 Kittredge, G. L., op. cit., p. 120.Google Scholar
52 v, 694–700 and 764–765. If Professor Kittredge means here, not that Criseyde failed to return because she could not talk Calchas around, but that her failure was the consequence rather of a Destiny beyond her control than of her will (that however strongly she willed her return it would not take place), then this statement is not reconcilable with a theory which makes Criseyde's character the explanation of her actions. See W. C. Curry, op. cit., p. 149, where Professor Kittredge's statement is taken to mean that the decrees of Destiny are stronger than Criseyde's will.
53 v, 1086–92.
54 Graydon, Joseph S., “Defense of Criseyde,” PMLA (1929), 141–177. Two possibilities are of course present: (1) Chaucer had a chronology in mind and deliberately blurred it to achieve purposes which a clear account of the chronology would have made impossible; or (2) he never worked out a chronology, simply using time references, as Shakespeare sometimes did, for their immediate effect, without worrying if one time reference contradicted another.Google Scholar
55 v, 1348–51.
56 v, 687–1099.
57 v, 1100 ff. That Chaucer is picking up the account at about the ninth day is indicated by v, 680–681.
58 Which, if there is any chronology at all, she was, v, 764–765.
59 iv, 757–798 and 1681–87.
60 Graydon, op. cit., p. 170.
61 v, 505–511.
62 iii, 253–259 and 267–273.
For nevere was ther wight, I dar wel swere,
That evere wiste that she dide amys (iii, 269–270).
63 v, 689–765.
64 ii, 703–812.
65 This decision is stated twice in the soliloquy, v, 750–754 and 764–765.
66 v, 766–770.
67 The situation is parallel to that in Book Two where Chaucer says Criseyde is not in love with Troilus but shows us a woman who is. See above.
68 v, 1005–08, 1054–85.
69 v, 1050.
70 This apparently carefully calculated treatment is pervasive (e.g., iv, 15–21; v, 768–769; v, 1093–99); Chaucer suddenly ceases not only to present Criseyde to us but, ostensibly, to know what she thought or felt. “I fynde ek in stories elleswhere” or “Men seyn” replaces “And thus she to hym seyde as ye may here, / As she that hadde hir herte on Troilus, etc.” We are made to feel, in Professor Root's words, that “with utmost reluctance, and of sheer compulsion, [Chaucer] narrates the shame of Criseyde as it stands recorded in his old books” (op. cit., p. 114).
71 v, 1023–29.
72 All explanations of Criseyde which assume that Chaucer was primarily interested in character must start by imagining a woman capable of yielding to Diomede and must then attempt to reconcile that woman with the Criseyde portrayed in the poem. They must, since Chaucer failed to do so, invent an episode in which Criseyde yields to Diomede and portray the woman who participated in that episode (see, for example, C. S. Lewis, op. cit., p. 189); they are then committed to interpreting the rest of the poem in terms of this woman; the Criseyde of their explanation originally derives from a scene Chaucer omitted from the poem.
73 Macbeth, ii, i, ii.—For like Criseyde's, Macbeth's tragedy, as distinguished from the tragic effect of the play as a whole, depends on the contrast between the essential nobility of his character and the wickedness of his deeds.
74 v, 862–868, 953–959 and 1002–08.
75 v, 1023–29.
76 v, 1429–35.
77 v, 1348–51.
78 See passages referred to in note 74.
79 v, 1590 ff.
80 The first letter was written something over two months after Criseyde's departure (v, 1348–49); the second letter some time later.
81 v, 1639–45.