Chaucerian Aesthetics

247 Pages·2008·1.96 MB·English

by  Peggy A. Knapp (auth.)

THE NEW MIDDLE AGES
BONNIE WHEELER, Series Editor
The New Middle Ages is a series dedicated to transdisciplinary studies of medieval cultures, with
particular emphasis on recuperating women’s history and on feminist and gender analyses. This
peer-reviewed series includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections.
PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE:
Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on
Patronage, and Piety Medieval European and Heian Japanese
edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly Women Writers
edited by Barbara Stevenson and
The Ethics of Nature in the Middle Ages: On
Cynthia Ho
Boccaccio’s Poetaphysics
by Gregory B. Stone Engaging Words: The Culture of Reading in
the Later Middle Ages
Presenceand Presentation: Women in the by Laurel Amtower
Chinese Literati Tradition
Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of
edited by Sherry J. Mou
Investiture
The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: edited by Stewart Gordon
Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century Representing Rape in Medieval and Early
France Modern Literature
by Constant J. Mews edited by Elizabeth Robertson and
Understanding Scholastic Thought with Christine M. Rose
Foucault Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in
by Philipp W. Rosemann the Middle Ages
edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman
For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de
and Pamela Sheingorn
Burgh
by Frances A. Underhill Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages:
Ocular Desires
Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in by Suzannah Biernoff
the Middle Ages
Listen, Daughter: The Speculum Virginum
edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela
and the Formation of Religious Women in the
Jane Weisl
Middle Ages
Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon edited by Constant J. Mews
England
Science, the Singular, and the Question of
by Mary Dockray-Miller
Theology
Listening to Heloise: The Voice of a Twelfth- by Richard A. Lee, Jr.
Century Woman
Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages
edited by Bonnie Wheeler
to the Renaissance
The Postcolonial Middle Ages edited by Thelma S. Fenster and
edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen Clare A. Lees
Chaucer’s Pardoner and Gender Theory: Malory’s Morte D’Arthur: Remaking
Bodies of Discourse Arthurian Tradition
by Robert S. Sturges by Catherine Batt
The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval The Texture of Society: Medieval Women in
Religious Literature the Southern Low Countries
edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, edited by Ellen E. Kittell and Mary A.
Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren Suydam
Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Charlemagne’s Mustache: And Other Cultural
Ages: Image Worship and Idolatry in England Clusters of a Dark Age
1350–1500 by Paul Edward Dutton
by Kathleen Kamerick
Troubled Vision: Gender, Sexuality, and Sight
Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, and in Medieval Text and Image
Literary Structure in Late Medieval England edited by Emma Campbell and Robert Mills
by Elizabeth Scala
Queering Medieval Genres
Creating Community with Food and Drink in
by Tison Pugh
Merovingian Gaul
by Bonnie Effros Sacred Place in Early Medieval Neoplatonism
by L. Michael Harrington
Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses:
Image and Empire The Middle Ages at Work
by Anne McClanan edited by Kellie Robertson and
Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Michael Uebel
Objects, Texts, Images
Chaucer’s Jobs
edited by Désirée G. Koslin and Janet
by David R. Carlson
Snyder
Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on
edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity
Carmi Parsons by John M. Ganim
Isabel La Católica, Queen of Castile: Critical Queer Love in the Middle Ages
Essays by Anna Klosowska
edited by David A. Boruchoff
Performing Women in the Middle Ages: Sex,
Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses of Gender, and the Iberian Lyric
Male Same-Sex Desire in the Fourteenth by Denise K. Filios
Century
Necessary Conjunctions: The Social Self in
by Richard E. Zeikowitz
Medieval England
Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, by David Gary Shaw
Marriage, and Politics in England 1225–1350
Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages
by Linda E. Mitchell
edited by Kathryn Starkey and Horst
Eloquent Virgins: From Thecla to Joan of Arc Wenzel
by Maud Burnett McInerney
Medieval Paradigms: Essays in Honor of
The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative Jeremy duQuesnay Adams, Volumes 1 and 2
Adventures in Contemporary Culture edited by Stephanie Hayes-Healy
by Angela Jane Weisl
False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later
Capetian Women Middle English Literature
edited by Kathleen D. Nolan by Elizabeth Allen
Joan of Arc and Spirituality Ecstatic Transformation: On the Uses of
edited by Ann W. Astell and Bonnie Alterity in the Middle Ages
Wheeler by Michael Uebel
Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature:
Modern Cultures: New Essays Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk
edited by Lawrence Besserman edited by Bonnie Wheeler
Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles,
edited by Jane Chance and Alfred K. Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings
Siewers edited by E. Jane Burns
Representing Righteous Heathens in Late Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France?:
Medieval England The Case for St. Florent of Saumur
by Frank Grady by George Beech
Byzantine Dress: Representations of Secular Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the
Dress in Eighth-to-Twelfth Century Painting Middle Ages
by Jennifer L. Ball by Erin L. Jordan
The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in
“Work” of the Text in Medieval Britain, Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles
1350–1500 by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
by Kellie Robertson
Medieval Go-betweens and Chaucer’s
The Dogaressa of Venice, 1250–1500: Wife Pandarus
and Icon by Gretchen Mieszkowski
by Holly S. Hurlburt
The Surgeon in Medieval English Literature
Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, by Jeremy J. Citrome
Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the
Temporal Circumstances: Form and History in
Absence of Things
the Canterbury Tales
by Eileen C. Sweeney
by Lee Patterson
The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the
Erotic Discourse and Early English Religious
Medieval Religious Renewal Movement
Writing
by Patricia Ranft
by Lara Farina
On the Purification of Women: Churching in Odd Bodies and Visible Ends in Medieval
Northern France, 1100–1500 Literature
by Paula M. Rieder by Sachi Shimomura
Writers of the Reign of Henry II: Twelve On Farting: Language and Laughter in the
Essays Middle Ages
edited by Ruth Kennedy and Simon by Valerie Allen
Meecham-Jones
Women and Medieval Epic: Gender, Genre,
Lonesome Words: The Vocal Poetics of the Old and the Limits of Epic Masculinity
English Lament and the African-American edited by Sara S. Poor and Jana K.
Blues Song Schulman
by M.G. McGeachy
Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval”
Performing Piety: Musical Culture in Medieval Cinema
English Nunneries edited by Lynn T. Ramey and
by Anne Bagnell Yardley Tison Pugh
The Flight from Desire: Augustine and Ovid Allegory and Sexual Ethics in the High
to Chaucer Middle Ages
by Robert R. Edwards by Noah D. Guynn
England and Iberia in the Middle Ages, Hildegard of Bingen’s Unknown Language: An
12th–15th Century: Cultural, Literary, and Edition, Translation, and Discussion
Political Exchanges by Sarah L. Higley
edited by María Bullón-Fernández
Medieval Romance and the Construction of
The Medieval Chastity Belt: A Myth-Making Heterosexuality
Process by Louise M. Sylvester
by Albrecht Classen
Communal Discord, Child Abduction, and
Claustrophilia: The Erotics of Enclosure in
Rape in the Later Middle Ages
Medieval Literature
by Jeremy Goldberg
by Cary Howie
Lydgate Matters: Poetry and Material Culture
Cannibalism in High Medieval English
in the Fifteenth Century
Literature
edited by Lisa H. Cooper and Andrea
by Heather Blurton
Denny-Brown
The Drama of Masculinity and Medieval
Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle
English Guild Culture
English Literature
by Christina M. Fitzgerald
by Tison Pugh
Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood
Sex, Scandal, and Sermon in Fourteenth-
by Holly A. Crocker
Century Spain: Juan Ruiz’s Libro de Buen
The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women Amor
by Jane Chance by Louise M. Haywood
Manmade Marvels in Medieval Culture and
The Erotics of Consolation: Desire and Distance
Literature
in the Late Middle Ages
by Scott Lightsey
edited by Catherine E. Léglu and
American Chaucers Stephen J. Milner
by Candace Barrington
Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border,
Representing Others in Medieval Iberian and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period
Literature edited by Don J. Wyatt
by Michelle M. Hamilton
Wisdom and Her Lovers in Medieval and
Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval
Early Modern Hispanic Literature
Studies
by Emily C. Francomano
edited by Celia Chazelle and
Felice Lifshitz Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval
Queenship: Maria de Luna
The King and the Whore: King Roderick
by Nuria Silleras-Fernandez
and La Cava
by Elizabeth Drayson In the Light of Medieval Spain: Islam, the West,
Langland’s Early Modern Identities and the Relevance of the Past
by Sarah A. Kelen edited by Simon R. Doubleday and
David Coleman, foreword by Giles
Cultural Studies of the Modern Middle Ages Tremlett
edited by Eileen A. Joy, Myra J.
Seaman, Kimberly K. Bell, and Chaucerian Aesthetics
Mary K. Ramsey by Peggy A. Knapp
CHAUCERIAN AESTHETICS
Peggy A. Knapp
CHAUCERIAN AESTHETICS
Copyright © Peggy A. Knapp, 2008.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-60668-5
All rights reserved.
First published in 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the US—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-60334-3 ISBN 978-0-230-61384-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230613843
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Knapp, Peggy Ann.
Chaucerian aesthetics / Peggy A. Knapp.
p. cm.—(New Middle Ages)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400—Criticism and interpretation.
2. Aesthetics, Medieval. 3. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Canterbury
tales. 4. Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Troilus and Criseyde. 5. Tales,
Medieval—History and criticism. I. Title.
PR1924.K56 2008
821(cid:2).1—dc22 2007051105
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: August 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Tranferred to Digital Printing in 2010
CONTENTS
Preface ix
1 Introduction: Why Aesthetics? 1
2 Chaucerian Resoun Ymaginatyf 17
3 Playing with Language Games 43
4 Beautiful Persons 69
5 The Beauty of Women 99
6 The Aesthetics of Laughter 127
7 Imagining Community 155
Notes 177
Bibliography 219
Index 235

PREFACE
Like all great works of art, the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde
are open to many kinds of analysis, and answer many kinds of ques-
tions. Those I have chosen to ask in this book are: why have these poems
given so much pleasure over so long a time and why is it right to call that
pleasure “aesthetic”? I have always enjoyed reading Chaucer, and the lon-
ger I attend to the poetry and the world to which it was originally
addressed, the more fun it gets. It’s work as well as play, of course, just as
working on a backhand tennis stroke is—you have to keep extending
your reach in order to enjoy the game.
The founding premise of aesthetic intuition is that beauty mediates
between idea and appearance; it brings the sensible and the intelligible
simultaneously into play in a felt personal response that can be shared and
explicated without being amenable to logical proof. This premise, older
than Kant but central to his Critique of Judgement, underlies my attempt
to display the interanimation of sensible detail with intelligible order
in Chaucer’s two long poems. There are, of course, many construals of
Kant’s treatise, and I have used his famous “moments” as incitements to
discovery rather than attempting to prove my own construals definitive.
I have also tried to adapt the Kantian analysis of beauty to our current
concerns; for example, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s work has helped to theo-
rize our involvements with the art of the past, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s
with intellectual play, and Antonio Damasio and Daniel Dennett’s with
cognitive theory.
I have incurred so many debts to other medievalists over the years that
I cannot thank them all here or even in the footnotes. The New Chaucer
Society’s meetings and publications over the years have involved me in
rich, vigorous discussions of the Middle Ages. I have incorporated some
paragraphs from essays previously published; the editors of The Chaucer
Review in the Special Issue on Aesthetics (2005), Mario Di Cesare of the
Pegasus Press (New Perspectives on Criseyde, 2004), and the University of
Minnesota Press (Imagining a Medieval English Nation, 2004) have given
their permission for their use in this extended argument. I am grateful to