Trewe wedded libbynge folk : metaphors of marriage in Piers Plowman and the Canterbury Tales [thesis]

257 Pages·1981·10.456 MB·English

by  Sigrid Pohl Perry

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University
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Perry, Sigrid Pohl
TREWE WEDDED LIBBYNGE FOLK: METAPHORS OF MARRIAGE IN
"PIERS PLOWMAN" AND THE "CANTERBURY TALES"
Northwestern University Ph.D. 1981
University
Microfilms
International
300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
Copyright 1981
by
Perry, Sigrid Pohl
All Rights Reserved
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
TREWE WEDDED LIBBYNGE FOLK:
METAPHORS OF MARRIAGE IN PIERS
PLOWMAN AND THE CANTERBURY TALES
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
for the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Field of English
by
SIGRID POHL PERRY
Evanston, Illinois
June 1981
0 Copyright by Sigrid Pohl Perry
All Rights Reserved 1981
carisslmo sponso meo
i 1 i
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank Professor Catharine Regan for her encouragement
and suggestions; and Professor Traugott Lawler for his constant en­
thusiasm, guidance, and exacting critical standard. Above all, I wish
to thank my husband, Philip, for his patience, confidence, and genuine
interest in this project which has grown with our life together.
CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................... iv
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 1: MARRIAGE AS INSTITUTION IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY
ENGLAND ....................................................... . . . . . . 4
CHAPTER 2: THE DOMESTIC MARRIAGE ........................................................ 36
CHAPTER 3: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MARRIAGE ................................................ 78
CHAPTER 4: THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE ........................................................ 115
CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICAL MARRIAGE ........................................................ 175
CONCLUSION...................................................................................................... 212
ENDNOTES.......................................................................................................... 218
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 236
v
INTRODUCTION
Although they firmly believed in a whole, harmonious universe,
those living in the fourteenth century discovered the cosmos to be so
complex that they sometimes doubted such integration possible. New
discoveries proved that the world held infinite variety. Changing
social patterns led to instability and confusion. Such multiplicity
frightened people, yet stimulated their efforts to interpret experiences
through images which unified the world in which they lived.
The primary experience of intimacy and union which all people share
is marriage; all measure its success or failure either firsthand as
spouses or secondhand as the offspring of such a relationship. There­
fore, marriage naturally affects the entire fabric of society, for the
way in which one learns to respond to intimate relationships determines
other social encounters. The human experience of marriage is essen­
tially a barometer for evidence of wholeness in society, and the evalua­
tion of it is a central issue in any exploration of a community.
Both William Langland and Geoffrey Chaucer understood this phen­
omenon. As each poet portrays the panorama of fourteenth-century
society, he emphasizes the importance of marriage within it. Langland
sees the failure of marriages as a mirror for instability everywhere;
the figurative offspring of Cain spread disorder and destruction around
them, continually breeding social and spiritual bastards. On the other
hand, characters such as Will and Piers Plowman himself have good,
harmonious unions which help to sustain the entire community. It has
long been noted that a central portion of the Canterbury Tales is
2
devoted to issues pertaining to marriage, namely sovereignty, experience
versus authority, and the demands of hushands and wives. Since these
topics involve the interaction of two people and the nature of the bond
they share, we can see that Chaucer, too, is concerned with the quality
of the marriage relationship and the ways the partners affect one another.
Because marriage is a common experience which often molds other re­
lationships, Chaucer and Langland find in it a ready vehicle to explore
human interaction on other levels. A good marriage depends on the
maturity of each partner, so the inward extension of union reflects the
psychological integration of the soul. In other words the faculties of
the mind and the passions of the body must be wed for the good of the
whole person. In the same way the various elements of society must be
united in law and affection to their sovereign. Certainly, the third
basic area in which the marriage metaphor finds meaningful expression
is the spiritual. In fact, marriage has been a traditional analogy for
divine union in most religions, and the Christian Church developed its
entire apocalyptic thrust around the nuptial metaphor in which God is
the Spouse of the soul and the Church is the Bride of Christ.
It is obvious that there is a certain multiplicity inherent in the
use of marriage as a metaphor; an analogy may extend as soon in one of
these directions as in another because the human soul is the core of
every one. Union and harmony at one level inevitably extend to these
others; and likewise discord and confusion quickly affect all one's con­
tacts. Certainly Chaucer and Langland both understood this, for their
poems weave together these metaphors of marriage so that a single
3
dramatic episode often illumines several of these spheres of union at
once. They present experience through the use of equivocal or ambiguous
language which can expose various avenues of existence at the same time.
Of course, we must understand that these analogies cannot extend
infinitely in any direction; the poets indicate the appropriate meta­
phorical context by appealing to certain traditional schemes of philoso­
phical expression. To understand just how Langland and Chaucer manipu­
late the nuptial metaphor in its psychological, spiritual, and political
dimensions, we must consider the general tradition out of which it comes.
Therefore, by way of background I shall include a brief exploration of
the metaphor in these areas at the beginning of each chapter before con­
sidering Lang!and's and Chaucer's treatment of it. Even more important
than this is a presentation of the social milieu of marriage in the
fourteenth century.
The basic outline, then, of the following discussion of the marriage
metaphor as Chaucer and Langland used it begins with an examination of
the medieval experience of the institution of marriage. I will sunmarize
the common laws and customs, the attitudes of both clergy and laity, and
the values and goals society placed on marriage. Next, I will examine
these human relationships as they are captured dramatically by Langland
and Chaucer. The complexities of marriage on its various metaphorical
levels can only be understood against the background of such a literal
foundation. The remaining three chapters, then, will explore the nature
of the marriage metaphor on psychological, spiritual, and political
levels as Chaucer and Langland portrayed it, especially as part of a
traditional philosophical context.