The "Book of the Duchess:" The Vision of the Artist as a Young Dreamer Author(s): Michael B.

Herzog Reviewed work(s): Source: The Chaucer Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Spring, 1988), pp. 269-281 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25094059 . Accessed: 04/11/2011 20:52
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THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS: THE VISION OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DREAMER
Michael B. Herzog by
the Book of the Duchess As the earliest of Chaucer's narrative poems, critics has had its merits as well as its flaws pointed out by Chaucerian too numerous to list. However, the role this poem plays in Chaucer's The of an artistic vision has not been acknowledged. development
poem's narrative style raises issues which we cannot dismiss as the

efforts of a fledgling artist early and somewhat uncontrolled in fact, provides the poem, well-known traditional forms; and most of the most formulation complicated important
questions Chaucer?or any other poet?can and must

to imitate the first aesthetic

The

confront.

Book of theDuchess is not only a part of Chaucer's toward a pilgrimage of art, it is the essential and formative first step. theory D. W. Robertson's of the Middle Ages as times which description concern for tension"1 has been chal were "innocent of our profound that Chaucer's lenged by a variety of criticism which has demonstrated from the confrontation the tension resulting of ac of ideals (the one opposition Robertson oppositions: oppositions of narrative and oppositions of techniques, knowledges), oppositions his theory of art through Chaucer thematic concerns. this developed in the juxtaposition of opposites, of experi primarily juxtaposition ence with the recreation in the work of art. While it of that experience poetry is filled with
is relatively Chaucer's easy early to narrative perceive works this have process not in been the mature recognized poems, for the

crucial role they play in the poet's search for his artistic vision. The Book of theDuchess, in particular, merits analysis in this context, since it
constitutes the first effort in Chaucer's search.

In Chaucer
"Chaucer's

and

the Shape
are often

of Creation,
unbalanced

Robert
and

Jordan
harshly

admits
angular,

that
and

narratives

their construction simplicity and seeming [that]

"these features are

clear to the point of extreme is explicitly naivete." However, he goes on to argue that
that they are Chaucer's means of solving

definitive,

THE

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REVIEW, University

University

Vol. Park

22, No. 4, 1988. and London.

Published

by The

Pennsylvania

State

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in accordance of medieval with medieval aesthetic problems principles correct in these asser structure."2 I believe that Jordan is basically
tions, as he is when he places these "disruptive tactics . . ." at the very

that they "are integral to his sense of the inorganic discontinuity between fiction and experience" (p. 6). to Troilus and Criseyde and to While Jordan applies this understanding to in certain of the Canterbury Tales, it must however be broadened clude all of Chaucer's in particular narrative the Book of the poems, to transcend, or at least to Duchess. Here Chaucer shows his willingness with which his source material is the traditional aspects challenge, as an investigation of the laden. Consequently, the poem functions nature of the "beautiful lie" that was poetry for the Middle Ages.3 In the Book of theDuchess, Chaucer makes use of a number of conven of Chaucer's art" and states
tional elements: the dreamer/narrator, the miserable lover, the hunt,

center

the catalog of virtues which constitute the lady?in short, the material or "stuff" of the poem as whole, borrowed without qualms from the
various sources available to him. And on one level, these elements

result in a conventional elegy for John of Gaunt's wife, Blanche.4 But the conventions form only standard ornamentation; the real poem is an of the fissures and cracks beneath the conventional facade. exploration
The ambivalent and form, from narrative innovation, content, each and style creates and theme. of this These the and maintains governs a tension the between various cannot as be the convention pects isolated of tension

elements?which complex frame-structure;

other?consist

but is ultimately dreamer/narrator consistent); (who seems ambivalent and dreams, between of the relationships the exploration storytelling of and book learning; and the implications and between experiential these relationships for living and dying.
The most basic aspect of narrative style?point vision of view?already

complicates
this poem

and challenges
derives. Chaucer

the conventions
turns the dream

of the models
frame

from which
into a recur

levels. The poem begins sive structure which consists of six narrative level. insomniac narrator?the with the voice of the lovelorn, primary a second narrative voice (filtered He reads a book which provides of course). The dreams which are dreamed the narrator, by through third in this book are really stories within stories?the the characters
narrative level. The narrator's exposure to these book-dreams results

the fourth in his own dream about the Man in Black; this constitutes level is created dream the fifth narrative that level. Within narrative tells: the story of his lover and of their by the story the Black Knight into the the lover's story the poem moves And within relationship. is the po which most level of all, the metaphor narrative important em's center: false Fortune, which took away his "fers" (619?54).5

MICHAEL

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six narrative levels function like concentric circles, creating a unconventional for medieval literature, quite and, point of complex into the ever-deepening immersion circles of the view. The careful These
narrative is not, however, reversed at the poem's end. Instead, the

narrator
er's

propels (which unambiguously

laconic closing

the story
statement:

from

specifies

the end of the metaphor)

"This was my

the Black directly

swevene;

Knight's to the dream

now hit

tale

ys

I will doon." Whatever the reasons for this abrupt ending (to which structure has moved return a bit later), the poem's into the dreamer But the bringing with a metaphor. face-to-face confrontation together in the metaphoric is the abiding concern of po of opposites process etry, and it is this process which Chaucer places at the center of his
first narrative poem in a guileless and innocent, almost casual man

In doing so, the poet signals his interest in exploring?through itself. his poetry?the poetic process frame of the poem sharpens The dream-vision this focus. Dreams relate to reality in much the same manner that poems do: dreams and of experience; poems are both descriptions they are not themselves but they shed light on it in unexpected the reality they describe, and often wonderful the dream vision as his early narra ways. By choosing a multi-leveled tive form,6 Chaucer for story provides metaphor even as he enriches the levels on which his narrative telling itself,
functions. In addition, the dream vision helps him to assume a narra

ner.

tive stance which

the and remote, of either customs.7

is to become
incompetent

characteristic
or obtuse

of all his narrative

recorder of events,

poetry:
of acts

Various
its "disruptive

technical
tactics"

aspects
constitute

of the Book of theDuchess

part of Chaucer's

demonstrate
on the

that
nature

focus

of art, but the primary one is the use to which he puts his first-person narrator. The poet's reliance on that figure in all of his narrative to the way Chaucer's indicates its importance poems poetry works; the
first-person concerns. thetic narrator Thus, is Chaucer's we are led primary again to tool a for focusing re-examination his of aes the

narrator of the Book of theDuchess. controversial For the point of my argument it matters whether the dreamer/ narrator is a sensitive and a tactful human psychologist being or whether he is a well-intentioned but bumbling he suc fool; whether out the grief-stricken ceeds in consciously Man in Black or drawing whether he fails to appreciate the depth of suffering which his noble starts the Black is undergoing; whether he knowingly companion on the so for which his suffering toward healing Knight path desper calls out, or whether he misunderstands what he is being told ately to bring relief to the lover. It matters and only happens not only

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because this is key to understanding the poem, but because this narra tor is the prototype or of the variously bemused, self-deprecating,
incompetent characters who are the voices of Chaucer's narrative po

ems. This first narrator must be carefully own sake, then, but for the information
for those who succeed him.

scrutinized he harbors

not only for his which prepares

readers of the poem Many thoughtful tor is tactful and self-aware. This reading
conviction that no one could be as obtuse

have argued that the narra is undoubtedly based on the

as this narrator must be if he

misunderstands what the Black Knight tells him so clearly at the out set of their interaction: the lady is dead. One of the strongest argu ments for an aware narrator has been provided who by Muscatine, that the narrator and sympathetically says "tactfully igno pretends rance of the lady's death so that the other may find relief in pouring out his sorrow."8 And again, "Though the Narrator has overheard in the other's lament that the lady is dead, he tactfully feigns ignorance" (p. 106). Those who read the narrator as obtuse have been "lured by the periodically realistic perspective" of the poem and have been "a fatal consistency of characterization" in the prologue trapped by and the dream.9 Apparently because he finds this reading to be com to uncharacteristically pelling, Muscatine provides no textual evidence bolster
to

his analysis.

There

is, however,
skimpy

considerable
information about

textual
the

evidence
nature of

another suggest narrator The

reading. us only gives

as the poem begins; however, his suffering he is someone who has to suffer significantly.10 He tells us that suffered and who continues he had not been able to sleep for eight years (I will try not to fall into this literally), and it would appear that his insom the trap of reading to do with love. Whether nia has something he has actually pursued or whether the life of the courtly lover and has been rebuffed, he has we do not even to experience not been successful rejection, enough is phisicien but oon" (39) who might heal for the beloved, used also by the Man terminology him?courtly-love is not, how in Black (571).11 The narrator's focus in this discussion it is on lovers undergo. ever, on the terrible suffering which Instead, the "lawe of kinde," for one not to the fact that it is unnatural, against concern is not with alleviating love pangs but with avoiding sleep. His In of extreme certain death?the consequence sleep deprivation. know. However, "there
other words, the narrator s story focuses not on lost love but on far

more

Consistent practical problems. of real interest he will demonstrate Black Knight's story. to sleep, the narrator Unable picks

is the lack with this state of mind in the courtly love elements of the up a book to "drive the night

MICHAEL

B. HERZOG

273

is so affected by away" (49). In the story he reads, the queen Alcyone that she is incapable of living a the disappearance of her beloved until she hears life. She vows abstinence from nourishment normal her king is dead or alive; she asks for?and receives?a whether in which she is told that her husband is indeed dead; and she dream to the news by dying "within the thridde morwe" (214). Our responds narrator claims that he has never before heard of gods and goddesses who can provide them?in "game" (238), which sleep, but he offers how seriously we are to take his claim of ignorance about suggests as recompense bedroom for sleep; furnished pagan divinities?a fully in Black. In he immediately falls asleep and dreams about the Man is how to cure others words, what he learns from the story of Alcyone his own insomnia. Surely the point of the story (at least, temporarily) must be that there are ways to cope with grief,12 but once again, the
narrator's own physiological experience causes him to ignore the love

instead the practical which point problem to the problems related him, thereby pushing incapacitates directly love well into the background. The real point of Alcyone's of story course fits in perfectly with what the poem is all about; but it is not a to for the poem by the narrator point which must be understood
work.

related

and

to focus

on

The narrator should recognize the deeper and less obvious informa tion about the necessity of coping with grief which Alcyone's story it because he is a poet?if not by voca contains. He should recognize that he tion, certainly by avocation. This we know from his admission finds reading books far more entertaining than playing chess or back to his dream (of (50ff.), and from his first and only response gammon to write it down which we are informed): in poetic form. But what about the argument that he does understand but keeps his own coun sel on these matters? If this were a narrator who keeps his opinions to one that he understands the significance of himself, argue might story and simply chooses not to tell us. But this is a highly Alcyone's in a poem of 1300 lines, approximately intrusive narrator: 700 lines are in his own voice: he or reactions his opinions gives nearly twenty times (an average of once every thirty-five lines).13 It seems probable that he would tell us the real significance of Alcyone's dream as well as of his own if he knew what it was, or even if he just thought he knew to him about Alcyone's what it was. Indeed, he tells us what matters and it is not what an insightful to character might be expected story, The poem's comment without from this provide.14 abrupt ending,
intrusive in which tor, narrator, we, as further audience, has failed a of supports reading are to understand expected to comprehend. the poem what as the a work narra

as character,

274
If we do not trust our

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own

response

to

the

narrator,

we

have

avail

able also the Black Knight's. Before the two men engage in conversa states the narrator overhears the sorrowing lover's song which tion, Is fro me ded, and ys agoon" (477, his problem: "my lady bryght... the narrator addresses in Black indicates him, the Man 479). When a desire to be left alone. The narrator's that his noble only suggestion "he share his story meets with the following response: acquaintance " loked on me asyde, / As who sayth, 'Nay, that wol not be' (558?59). in the In other words, the narrator does not inspire initial confidence to talk, the Black Knight finds himself lover. Once persuaded grieving the narrator does not forced to repeat his tale several times because seem to understand. to describe lover resorts to metaphor the The essence of his sorrow: "fais Fortune hath pleyde a game / Atte chesse "With hir fais draughtes with me" (618?19); dyvers / She staal on me answer is to scold him for The dreamer's and toke my fers" (653-54). in this manner, followed by a long list of characters who, grieving or in love, killed themselves their lovers or unsuccessful by betrayed
others?in other words, overreacted. The narrator allows, however,

serious losses; surely, he con that at least these people had suffered for a fers make this woo" cludes, "Ther is no man alyve here /Wolde lack of (740?41). The Man in Black recoils in shock at the narrator's (743), sensitivity, telling him, "Thou woste ful lytel what thou menest"
but upon the dreamer's insistence, he agrees to explain more clearly

one condition: to him?under "That thou shalt has happened hitte" (751-52). with all thy wytte / Doo thyn entent to herkene hooly at this point cannot be great; yet the His faith in the narrator's "wytte" of his with a vivid and detailed lover continues (if stock) description attributes. Here the narrator breaks in to agree that the lady's positive to as words Black Knight thought she was the best (1042ff.)?hardly the lover's effort to explain the A few lines later, following suage grief. to him, the narrator comments that it importance lady's unparalleled lover will forget his lady as it is that he will is as likely that the grieving And when the lover without receive absolution (1112ff.). penance to express his eternal faithfulness, the narrator cuts him off, attempts with a re and concluding asking instead for details of the courtship even at this point: of understanding quest that suggests his total lack what

Nyl she not love yow? Ys hyt soo? Or have ye oght doon amys, she hath left yow? Ys hyt this? That

(1140-42)

MICHAEL

B. HERZOG

275
story,
as

While
tactful

these questions
and suggest an

do elicit
obtuse

the Black
narrator

Knight's
who serves

they are not

the tool of a

poet in creating a desired effect. his story with the oft lover finally finishes the sorrowing the chatty narrator that his lady is quite dead, disclosure repeated time and time again to the poem, has interrupted who, throughout sensitive When
comment on the meaning of events, says nothing. The dream?and,

with

it, the poem?simply or their meaning, counted,

cance that no somehow one?not veiled? even The the

ends. Are difficult

narrator best

the events which have been re to understand? Is their signifi

seems to on think dream so. He assures us interpretation

authorities

possibly know what to make of the (Joseph and Macrobius)?could events he has dreamed marvelous (280ff.).15 The narrator remains as his dream as he was by his inability to and bemuddled confused by that this character could consciously is no indication urge sleep. There the various stages of grieving.16 the Black Knight through
This reading narrator author's of the narrator is not based on a "too-literal" response;

rather,
consistent cut the

it acknowledges
whose ability

that Chaucer
own to present lack of

is capable
understanding a narrative

of presenting
does in which a not

us with
under

sorrowing

to what we might call a greater degree of psychological lover is guided as a closer relationship to the "law health and what Chaucer describes of kinde." This is brought about through carefully selected avenues of
communication ment as "the of the record and narrator of a of stages as obtuse unique that self-understanding.17 also supports whose the meaning acknowledge of the poem was for significance An

event

primary him to

Chaucer
et's search

himself"18?a
for a voice

significance
would

that had much

allow

to do with
the

the po
aesthetic

explore

questions
poem. This

he was just beginning

narrator is the first and,

to define
as a

in this, his earliest

of that

narrative
a less

function

status,

refined tor. He
and

and perhaps but still typical Chaucerian less believable is the original of that group of characters who were
in successive poems their confusion or

narra to state
incompe

demonstrate

tence at doing justice to the narrative efforts they nevertheless under narrator took despite their protests. This particular is important be cause he demonstrates was how early in his development Chaucer in how good interested stories told by bad storytellers might make allowed him to begin explor good art. This incongruous juxtaposition the ways in which better stones (which I define as more ing interesting and richer for him and perhaps for his audience) might result from
such a combination.

As will

later Chaucerian

poems,

the Book of the Duchess

already

ex

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in books (or poems) and experience, between plores the relationship an effort to determine the relative value of each for providing truth.19 narra The narrator, less directly than do later Chaucerian perhaps in books. When he cannot sleep he reads a tors, seeks information book in which he learns how to solve his immediate problem. And in to the dream which results from the reading of this book, he response creates yet another book. Unlike the Black Knight, whose story is
based on that character's experiences in reality, the narrator's story is

stories, be their sources books or dreams generated by is to be found in books about whether books. The discussion authority or elsewhere in Chaucer's is carried on overtly later narrative works; the basic formulation of the situa but the Book of theDuchess contains to pursue this question.20 Books (stories, tion which will allow Chaucer to problems not only provide solutions here; they poems, narratives) state. The Black Knight restore people to a more is better natural or not the dreamer is after he has told his story (regardless of whether a conscious in The lover has made progress sorrowing therapist). to his grief; he has been forced to operate in closer accord responding based on other
to the "lawe of kinde"?the natural law. If dreams are stories?and

the experience of are?then stories also changed they undoubtedly For the dream in which her husband tells her his story allows Alcyone. existence. She dies, but this is a natural her to escape her unnatural
act. She has no reason to live, and the closer state has dream results in a movement with affected the by "law stories. of toward kinde." a natural The response?again, dreamer/narrator's alignment also been

of dying Afraid teaches him how natural state and "lawe of kinde."21 roles in this poem

he reads a story which from extreme insomnia, at least temporarily to sleep, discontinuing his un with the him also to greater compatibility restoring for all of the characters who play significant Thus, stories (the lady is not an actor in the narrative), a forceful statement to problems. Chaucer makes solutions provide art and reality, between stories and between about the connection in stories has law. The truth inherent in accord with the natural living in an important in the lives of people?especially function people to a better relation from which they must be restored crisis situations, or die, as may be appropriate. ship with reality so that they may live a living death, however?the kind of existence Death is not unnatural; share at some point and the Black Knight that the narrator, Alcyone, this is changed And unnatural. in their various stories?is through
stories.

But stories in this context are poetry, and poetry is art. But what is art? That is the question Chaucer begins to formulate. He seeks infor about the nature of the illusions which stories create and the mation

MICHAEL

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277

quality of the truth that may be found there. The "lie or veil"22 which and stories) gives Alcyone, the Black Knight, is poetry (the dreams to them in their normal and the narrator that is not available help
existence. In other words, fiction is structured to create a new reality

to real problems. But what is the quality which provides real answers or nature of this new reality? How does it fit into the implicitly perfect creation which art imitates?
Chaucer even about seems the uneasy material about he the answers in available for to him, those uneasy answers.

produces

searching

suggests Jordan dilemma:

that

this discomfort

is rooted

in a kind

of moral

a strong sense of the limitations of fiction motivated Clearly on two most explicit and forthright Chaucer's pronouncements own art, the "Retraction" the Canterbury Tales, and his following of Troilus and Criseyde. In both of these state the "Epilogue" ments the bases of his art and the poet anxiously questions to piety and condemns all that is not openly conducive spiritual enlightenment, But does Chaucer piety and spiritual
reflect an aesthetic

(pp. 7?8) really condemn enlightenment,"

uncertainty about

what is "not openly conducive or do these "pronouncements"

the nature and effect of art

to
in

for Chaucer it has been prescribed and reality by his tradition it in this manner culture? And does he describe because he has no other way to talk about it directly? to the funda Every true artist must have a vision which responds "What is the relationship mental question he or she must confront: of or reality?" Chaucer sees an imperfect reality (as did art to experience to restructure and he attempts it not into author), every medieval that teeters on the edge of perfection Dante feared his (as something Divine Comedy might) but into a reflection of that flawed reality? about the poetic process itself. His tradition thereby raising questions that art imitated a divine and therefore perfect struc taught Chaucer to or farther away from the implicit ture; art could only be nearer to create anything of this creation. Was it then possible perfection Where did the illusion created by the poet fit into this struc original? ture? Did it have an existence of its own, and if so, could it be that the that was in and of itself new?and if it poet was creating something was new, how was it so? Did experience and the poetic reshaping of that experience truths? More reveal different what was specifically, in variant versions of the same story? the nature of the truth found How much could one change the details of a story handed down as the truth veiled in that story? Or to sum up history without affecting

as

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to in the original what is the role of art in relationship question: or reality? experience to vitiate such issues by While medieval culture seemed providing answers which were not to be questioned, to Chaucer's work appears demonstrate his need to ask them; it also demonstrates the possibility nor comforting. that the answers he found were neither comfortable He was no heretic who sought to challenge the dogma of his faith; but he was an artist who was driven by the consuming desire to make his art conform to standards his environment did not provide and which he had to create as he wrote. Had he been comfortable with the status to sit at to his home every evening he would not have retreated quo, as the eagle charges book" "another till his look was "daswyd," with doing (House of Fame, 657-58).23 Geoffrey In the works which follow the Book of theDuchess, Chaucer presents in a number his concerns of important forms which go beyond the to be mentioned. limits of this present but which ought exploration, are troubled and troubling, The narrators in all of Chaucer's poems ambivalent stumble situations which figures who through complex admit are beyond their power to describe, much less they frequently to understand.24 a brief Even look at a few of the forms which concerns take suggests of his search. The Chaucer's the complexity of the Parliament of Fowls ends in the narra stanzaic structuring perfect tor's promise that he will keep reading books so that he may someday to tell us which will allow him to succeed?perhaps read something in form yet lacking a real conclusion the ending of the poem, perfect (a variation on the ending of the Book of theDuchess). The incomplete ness of the House of Fame (an elaborately "structured" work, with its richer and more three books and its proems25), paradoxically provides about "truth" than did the seemingly perfect tantalizing suggestions Parliament. The House of Fame presents information about fame and rumor to a narrator who is uninterested in this information and who comes to life only when "a man of gret auctorite" But by appears. to provide share with us, the poem the "truth" this man might failing that can give us the truth there is no authority suggests that ultimately tension between seeks to know.26 The the narrator (and Chaucer) to change contained desire "historic facts" and the narrator's barely alter them in Troilus and Criseyde, as well as the highly manipulative are yet in the figure of Pandarus, the narrator creates for himself ego
other forms of Chaucer's exploration of the artistic concerns underly

at ing his art. And the narrator of the Canterbury Tales, who apologizes so the outset that his "wit is short," but through whom are interwoven themes produced of multiple the complexities by many brilliantly other narrators, is the final version of the character type we meet interest in how bad poetry initially in the Book of theDuchess. Chaucer's

MICHAEL

B. HERZOG

279
to the over
Chaucer

can become
all narrator

good
of the

art is obvious
Tales. And

in the very tales he assigns

the many and various answers

to the tantalizing questions the tales pose about how men and provides women in and outside of marriage; what kind of relate to one another our to describe if any, exists in our reality and in our efforts order, how we change as various realities so that they justify our decisions; we get older; and how all of this fits into our relationship with God? in which these issues are examined is the natural outcome the manner of the Book of theDuchess dazedly and in which the dreamer the most seeks to understand simple realities of life and doggedly to join of the only character death. Even the unexpected appearance as after it has begun can be understood the Canterbury pilgrimage introduces of this effort, for in the Canon's Yeoman's Tale Chaucer part as alchemy this "unmedi of narrative the metaphor (foreshadowing modern eval" concern writers such as Thomas Mann later pursued by man?a creator of illusions in his metaphor of the artist as confidence which entertain and teach by deluding it is this alchemy us). And the alchemy which Chaucer his whole artistic life through, practiced for which he apologizes in the retractions of Troilus and the Tales; that he has produced is unfit these are not confessions writing which but admissions that he has failed: public statements of the morally, which result from a lifetime spent in the pursuit frustrations private of questions which can only be answered by and within the work of art and which, for someone with the self-imposed standards of a Geoffrey of the way
Chaucer, may ultimately have been unattainable.

The issues which are raised then by the narrative style of the Book of must be recognized as the the Duchess must be treated seriously; they are for this about art which crucial and formative questions they to be no more than the young poet. While they seem at first glance are in actuality material of traditional, standard narrative, the they to "disturb as Prufrock stuff that dares the universe," did not. Six hundred had dared in ways that were years before Prufrock, Chaucer so unlike those of his contemporaries and transcended them so that, rather than being the only readers with proper access to greatly in all probability Chaucer's could not even poems, his contemporaries have guessed at their real importance.

Gonzaga

University

1. D. W. Robertson, to Chaucer (Princeton, 1963), 51. Jr., A Preface 2. Robert Jordan, Chaucer and the Shape of Creation Mass., (Cambridge, x. 3. Jordan, 7.

1967),

ix, ix

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CHAUCER

REVIEW

... as a a hash of the poem 4. Josipovici is probably "make[s] right that Chaucer The World Fiction and the Book: A Study of Modern elegy": Gabriel Josipovici, it is not because he cannot control his matter, but (Stanford, 1971), 75. However, because he is trying to push the form to do something it has not been used to do. are from The 5. All citations from Chaucer's works Complete Poetry and Prose of (New York, 1977). Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. John H. Fisher can argue 6. One that Chaucer did not so much choose the dream vision as the to him in which to write dream vision was the form available the kind of poem he was in his career. However, his use of the dream vision shows that he is not early writing a convention to be available; as the true artist, he because it happens simply following uses the form to plumb in innovative its possibilities ways. provided narrators 7. From the first, then, Chaucer's have little personal for responsibility But it is interesting the events that the servant of the "God of loves they recount. as well as the incompetent in Troilus, servauntz" from a of Thopas, evolve storyteller is relieved he is re who of responsibility of the experience character by the nature a dream. telling: 8. Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition 102. 1969), (Berkeley, a kind of consistency 9. P. 107. Muscatine in the himself been may trapped by as as the poet; as intelligent this allows him to read the narrator poem which being for the ironic distance and his narrator lessens the possibility between Chaucer reading in the later which is being in the early poems with and is undeniable experimented works. who While in his book he argues relies on the elsewhere for a Chaucer strongly of opposites, does not seem to see as part ofthat Muscatine narrative juxtaposition style in this poem. the tension created by an ironic narrator 10. Bertrand H. Bronson, PMLA "The Book of the Duchess Reopened," 67 (1952): 868. use of this stock metaphor seems to make 11. The his narrator's for the beloved How of the Black Knight's chess metaphor all the more confusing. miscomprehension in the narra that the Black Knight's remember ever, we must figure of speech occurs to understand be simply Chaucer's reflection of our tor's dream; his inability may as we do when we are awake. in dreams human inability to function Rich Professor Blameth Nat Me 12. Janette Richardson, (The Hague, 1970), 60-61. case the reading out that even "in the dreamer's of the tale ardson points though . . . the a forestalls death resulting from sorrow message [merely] promotes sleep which . sorrow resulting from a death." of the tale . . may forestall com a "frame of digressive Troilus and Criseyde as having 13. Jordan characterizes narrator the frame of the is created which (p. 65). Clearly, mentary," by its intrusive Book of theDuchess is created by a narrator who is just as intrusive. to reflect is meant obtuseness 14. James Vinny that the dreamer's thinks seeming to depict the demands of "between ideals and Chaucer wishes the tension courtly to Vinny, life": Chaucer's Dream-Poems 1973), 74. Hence, (New York, according everyday we have a narrator who understands human but cannot comprehend normal responses formal love behavior. typical courtly to the end in who "persists almost 15. V. A. Kolve that this obtuse narrator, suggests as an example to his audience in a literal way," is offered by Chaucer hearing everything in "the traditional of symbol to the hidden messages of how not to respond language ism": Chaucer and the Imagery ofNarrative 1984), 63?64. (Stanford, awareness is based on our contemporary of grieving of the complexity 16. While and compassionate Chaucer's the Middle which research thorough Ages, postdates is amply demonstrated in the poem. of this process understanding at such lamentation 17. Josipovici (77) points out that "the poet's astonishment being as to the metaphor draws attention in for a chess queen (as metaphor." Thus indulged on the central structure narrator narrative focuses the the obtuse discussed earlier) of the Black metaphor 43. 18. Vinny, Knight's story.

MICHAEL

B. HERZOG

281

and analyzed the book-dream-experience 19. Robert O. Payne has clearly identified triad in The Key toRemembrance (New Haven, 1963). sees a contest 4L Vinny in Chaucer's work between and disor 20. Vinny, authority in this poem. The Book of the Duchess does, however, is not yet discernible der, which was feeling his way towards of this emerging "contain expression signs that Chaucer interest." is describing condition": "his present 21. Bronson (868) points out that the dreamer of his continuing insomnia. If this is correct, "The . . .dream was only an interruption" he has not fully "health" may be limited precisely because the narrator's improved understood the stories he has read and dreamed. 34. 22. Jordan, no more Chaucer in the House than are 23. While the narrator of Fame is obviously to write much must Chaucer have been driven narrators, any of the other Chaucerian as the duties and responsi the demands was, considering eagle's Geoffrey governmental on his time. His have been motivated than bilities made then, must by more writing, or the pleasure them to appreciative audiences. of reciting simply the urge to tell stories or less obtuse as more would do no 24. Again, any of these narrators reading to the validity of the ideas presented violence them. If anything, the inherent through enhances the attractiveness of the art. irony of this model or not they were in the original the 25. Whether indicated clearly manuscripts, structural divisions. proems do constitute part of the poem's I agree with Donald K. Fry that the House of Fame is a poem which "demonstrates 26. the 'man of transmitted secular knowledge the unreliability by satirizing metaphorically in general, of great authority' off as a deliberate and authorities breaking fragment": in Chaucer at Albany, ed. Rossell Hope Robbins "The Ending ofThe House of Fame," (New York, 1975), 28.