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1 The Conclusion of the Marriage Group Chaucer and the Human Condition Author(s): Donald R. Howard Source: Modern Philology, Vol. 57, No. 4 (May, 1960), pp Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: Accessed: 13/11/ :07 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern Philology.

2 THE CONCLUSION OF THE MARRIAGE GROUP CHAUCER AND THE HUMAN CONDITION KITTREDGE, in 1912, first defined the Marriage Group as a dramatically integrated unit within the Canterbury Tales. It begins, he suggested, with the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale; after an interruption it is resumed in the Clerk's treatment of the patient Griselda and the Merchant's cynical denial of happiness in marriage; and it is concluded, after the interruption of the Squire's Tale, by the Franklyn's compromise between Christian marriage and courtly love.1 There followed a protracted discussion, in which some critics denied that these tales form any kind of a group, while others, accepting the notion, suggested that the Squire's Tale, the Nun's Priest's Tale, and the Melibee are also related to it.2 But in all this no one has questioned the fundamental premise, implicit in Kittredge's argument, that the Marriage Group has at base a radically secular cast which reflects the private opinion of the author: the group is thought to end with the Franklyn's suggestion for a method of establishing domestic concord, and this solution is believed, in Kittredge's words, to be "what Chaucer thought about marriage."3 This picture of the poet as a thinker disposed chiefly toward secular notions I George Lyman Kittredge, "Chaucer's Discussion of Marriage," Modern Philology, IX (1912), See Henry Barrett HEinckley, "The Debate on Marriage in the Canterbury Tales," PMLA, XXXII (1917), On the inclusion of the Squire's Tale see Marie Neville, "The Function of the Squire's Tale in the Canterbury Scheme," JEGP, L (1951), On the Melibee and the Nun's Priest's Tale see William Witherle Lawrence, "The Marriage Group in the Canterbury Tales," Modern Philology, XI (1913), , and Germaine Dempster, "A Period in the Developmnent of the Canterbzury Tales Marriage Group and of Blocks B2 and C," PMLA, LXVIII (1953), Kittredge, p [MODERN PHILOLOGY, MaY, which were "ahead of his time" is-or should be-qualified by the fact that Chaucer wrote many works of a Christian and ascetic character. Putting to one side all those minor poems which might be considered conventional and perfunctory,4 we find that one of the greatest secular works, the Troilus, ends with an epilogue which counsels readers to turn from the love of worldly things; and recent scholarship has supported the opinion that the epilogue is seriously intended and integral with the poem. And the Canterbury Tales ends with the Parson's sermon on penitence, followed by Chaucer's retraction. Lately, however, this wholly justifiable view of Chaucer as a religious writer and thinker has been carried to an unprecedented extreme. Those critics who have come to be called "pan-allegorists" are interpreting notably secular tales, like the Nun's Priest's Tale, and even the Mer- 4 Of his minor poems, the ABC is a prayer to the Virgin, Fortune deals with the theme of mutability, Truth and Lak of Stedfastnesse express traditional Christian morality. In the Canterbury Tales the Man of Law's Tale is the Christian legend of Constance, the Clerk's Tale is the much admired story of Griselda, the Physician's Tale is the Christian story of Virginia, the Prioress's Tale is a Christian legend, and the Monk's Tale (though unfinished and ridiculed for its tedium) is a collection of de casibus tragedies. The satire in the Canterbury Tales, moreover, agrees with traditional criticisms, leveled often by the church itself against the clergy. Chaucer also translated several works of Christian character: the Tale of Melibee, the Parson's Tale, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, and, on his own testimony, Origen's sermon De Maria Maydalena ("Orygenes upon the Maudeleyne") and the De miseria humance conditionis of Pope Innocent III ("of the Wreched Engendrynge of Mankynde, / As man may in pope Innocent yfynde" [Legend of Good Women, G prologue ). Lastly, in all MSS at the end of the Parson's Tale appears Chaucer's retraction of "my translacions and enditynges of worldly vanitees," of the Carnterbury Tales "thilke that sownen into synne," and "'many a song and many a leccherous lay." There is no reasonable doubt of the authenticity of this retraction. See The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. F. N. Robinson (2d ed.; Boston, 1957), p. 772.

3 224 chant's Tale, as allegorical treatments of Christian doctrine,5 the argument being that all "serious" medieval literature is "always allegorical when the message of charity or some corollary of it is not evident on the surface."6 From this point of view, of course, everything that Chaucer wrote is doctrinal, including all the courtly poetry and all the fabliaux, and none of it can be called secular except insofar as secular things are mentioned in the "cortex" of surface meaning which conceals the "nucleus" of Christian truth. riage is a desirable state and that the husband should be lord; he is interested in finding a meeting ground with notions of courtly love and never entertains any question of "counsels of perfection." It is possible, however, that Chaucer meant to return to that initial and basic question of perfection, in either the Physician's Tale or the Second Nun's Tale, or even in both. In making this suggestion, I am accepting the conclusions of Professor Pratt's famous article, which recommends the following order:7 III(D) Wife of Bath Friar Summoner IV(E) Clerk Merchant V(F) Squire Franklyn VI(C) Physician Pardoner VIII(G) Second Nun Canon's Yeoman In the pages which follow I should like to suggest a picture of Chaucer as a thinker which falls rather between these two extremes. My point of departure is a re-examination of the Marriage Group, which begins with the Wife of Bath's attempt to undermine the medieval idea of perfection-specifically, the notion that virginity, being a higher state than marriage, should be held up as an ideal of conduct. Now as everyone knows, the argument turns at once to the question of sovereignty in marriage, and it is to this problem that the Franklyn's Tale presents a solution. The initial question, whether one can marry and still follow Christ's command "Be ye therefore perfect," gets left along the way, though the problem is implicit in the Clerk's Tale and, to an extent, in the Merchant's. The Franklyn merely assumes, as of course the church taught, that mar- 6 See Mortimer J. Donovan, "The Moralite of the Nun's Priest's Sermon," JEGP, LII (1953), ; Charles Dahlberg, "Chaucer's Cock and Fox," JEGP, LIII (1954), ; D. W. Robertson, Jr., "The Doctrine of Charity in Medieval Literary Gardens," Speculum, XXVI (1951), D. W. Robertson, Jr., "Historical Criticism," English Institute Essays, 1950, ed. Alan S. Downer (New York, 1951), p. 14. But it is important to notice at once that Pratt places the Physician-Pardoner fragment here very tentatively; he reminds us that there is no internal evidence and that the fragment has an "unlinked" quality. Hence at some stage of composition Chaucer could have intended the Franklyn's Tale to be followed directly by the Second Nun's Tale. Given either of these possibilities, we are faced with a far more penetrating difficulty: in what frame of mind could Chaucer, with whatever reservations, have placed at the end of the Marriage Group a tale about virginity or a tale about a chaste marriage? I When the Wife of Bath argues against virginity that "conseillyng is no comandement" (III, 67), she is appealing to the medieval notion of perfection. Her argument is that the highest counsel of perfection is virginity but that not everyone is expected to follow it.8 "Virginitee is 7 Robert A. Pratt, "The Order of the Canterbury Tales," PMLA, LXVI (1951), On the position of Fragment VI see pp Perfection was, of course, the goal of the monastic life, and it was always acknowledged that only some were called to that pursuit; the Wife of Bath indeed

4 THE CONCLUSION OF THE MARRIAGE GROUP greet perfeccion" (105), she grants, and is a more perfect state than "weddyng in freletee" (91-92). But, she adds, Crist, that of perfeccion is welle, Bad nat every wight he sholde go selle Al that he hadde, and gyve it to the poore And in swich wise folwe hym and his foore. He spak to hem that wolde lyve parfitly; And lordynges, by youre leve, that am nat I. [107-12] While the Wife is no doubt wrong in resigning herself with so much gusto to her own imperfection, what she actually says is quite in line with prevailing doctrines. Although medieval Christians had always before them the command of Christ, "Be ye therefore perfect" (Matt. 5:48), the possibility of perfection seemed contradicted by the fundamental doctrine that all men are subject to ignorance, concupiscence, and death-the punishments of original sin. The result was a notion of limited perfection. In the moral and ethical sense, perfection was something other than holiness or sanctification; it existed within the limitations of human frailty, and those who attained it were still subject to venial sin. "Perfection" was, in short, a relative term. While all Christians were expected to be righteous, they were not all expected to be "perfect," that is to say, not equally so. It was possible to command righteousness but only to counsel perfection. Accordingly, in the various means by which perfection could be cultivated-poverty, virginity, prayer, and so on-there were degrees or grades.9 This principle of grades underlies the seems to associate the monastic life with the notion of perfection when she says that Christ did not bid every man to sell all that he has and follow Him (107-10), since this passage (Matt. 19:21) was the customary scriptural sanction for monasticism. On the background of the controversy about women and marriage see M. A. Screech, The Rabelaisian Marriage: Aspects of Rabelais's Religion, Ethics and Comic Philosophy (London, 1958), pp. 5-24; on the notion that continence is a special gift which not everyone can expect to attain, an argument not unlike the Wife's, see pp medieval attitude toward marriage. There were three grades of chastity-marriage, widowhood, and virginity; these were said to produce various rates of return, the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:3-23) being often applied to them.10 In this way the Pauline view that it is better to marry than to burn (I Cor. 7:9) was developed into a system where marriage was an allowable and righteous state but less meritorious than widowhood or virginity. The premise is that intercourse for pleasure is wrong-that even in marriage intercourse to satisfy lust is a venial fault." Jerome had argued- as the Parson points out-that it was adultery when a man and wife "take no reward in hire assemblynge but oonly to hire flesshly delit."'l2 And on such grounds Augustine had written that, although remarriage was not condemned, it was more desirable for a widow not to remarry. It was, in the same way, more desirable that "even during the life of her husband, by his consent, a female vow continence unto Christ" :13 9 On Christian perfection see the article by Frederic Platt in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, IX (1917), , and the article by A. Fonck in Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, XII, See also H. Newton Flew, The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology: An Historical Study of the Christian Ideal for the Present Life (London, 1934). For illuminating comments on the problem, especially the notion of grades or degrees of perfection, and for further references, see Morton W. Bloomfield, "Some Reflections on the Medieval Idea of Perfection," Franciscan Studies, XVII (1957), '0 On the three grades of chastity see Ambrose, De viduis, IV, 23 (PL, XVI, ) and Epistola, LXIII, 40 (PL, XVI, 1251). See also Augustine, "On the Good of Widowhood,"??1-5, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff, III (Buffalo, 1887), , and passim. For a brief history of the concept see Matthaus Bernards, Speculum Virgsnum, Geistigkeit und Seelenleben der Frau im Hochmittelalter, Forschungen zur Volkskunde, ed. G. Schreiber, Band (Cologne and Graz, 1955), pp. 40 fl. See also Morton W. Bloomfield, "Piers Plowman and the Three Grades of Chastity," Anglia, LXXVI (1958), Augustine, "On the Good of Marriage,"?6 (ed. Schaff, pp ) and?18 (p. 407). 12 Parson's Tale, X, 903 f. Cf. Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, I, 49 (PL, XXIII, 281) "On the Good of Widowhood,"?13 (ed. Schaff. p. 446). Cf.??6 and 15 (pp. 443, ).

5 226 Augustine held up the chaste marriage of the Virgin Mary as an example of the manner in which married persons can live most perfectly.l4 The system of grades thus acknowledged the difficulty of attaining the ideal. Virginity was a counsel of perfection, for those privileged few who might be called to such a higher state. The virgin-that is, the "sacred" virgin, who had made a vow to maintain chastity15-was said to be married to Christ. For this reason, once the virgin was called to and professed that mode of life, returning to the world was said to be a greater sin than that of a monk who returns to the world; for a professed virgin to marry, it had been remarked, was equivalent to adultery.'6 Yet it was understood that fallen men could not all be expected to follow such counsels. The author of the Ancrene Riwle, quoting Jerome, compared the calling to virginity with the calling to the life of solitude: "For as j?er ar bot few folk in comparison pat ar stired to virginite, so Jer are bot few in comparison pat ar stired to be solitari."17 The grades of chastity are given very clear expression at the end of the Canterbury Tales in the Parson's sermon (X, ). The Parson argues that marriage is a sacrament; that its end is to produce children; that it was ordained that one 14"On Virginity,"?4 (p. 418). Against this background one can note that the Wife of Bath is arguing not against her being a virgin (which she is not) but against her being, or remaining, a widow (which just at the moment she is). Yet the Wife, however low in the grades of chastity, is not necessarily in a state of mortal sin; the degree of her imperfection remains ambiguous. One notes that her interest in marriage is decidedly fleshly, that she does not submit to the husband's authority, and that (however vehemently she quotes the scriptural command to wax and multiply) there is no indication that she has had children. 5 ""On Virginity,"?10 (p. 420). t6 See W. K. Lowther Clarke, St. Basil the Great: A Study in Monasticism (Cambridge, 1913), pp. 11, The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle, ed. A. C. Baugh (London, 1956), EETS, No. 232, p. 43. man should have but one woman and one woman but one man; and that the wife should obey, serve, and love her husband and be faithful to him. He names widowhood as the state of those who have been wives and foregone their husbands, or who have done lechery and been relieved by penance, or who remain chaste during marriage with their husbands' permission. He argues that virginity is the highest form of chastity, that the virgin is the bride of Christ and is equal to the martyrs. Against this background it will be seen that the Franklyn's clever solution to the problem of "maistrye" is by no means the last word that could have been said on the subject of marriage. And it is unlikely to be all that Chaucer thought about it. The Franklyn's discussion is of course limited to problems of marriage itself. Of widowhood or virginity he says nothing, although in his tale the wife remains continent even during what appears to be her widowhood. True, within this limitation his compromise is immensely attractive. The Franklyn takes as donnees the notions of Christian marriage and courtly love: the husband is to take no "maistrye" against the wife's will, and is to have "soverayntee" only in name; the wife on her part will be his "humble trewe wyf." In moments of duress both partners agree to exercise patience. Thus the husband is to be servant in love and lord in marriage, and the result is to be "joy, ease, and prosperity" (V, 804). The compromise preserves nominal "maistrye" for the husband, satisfies the Wife of Bath's demand that sovereignty go to the woman, and takes into account the Clerk's counsel of patience and humility; in all this it controverts the Merchant's denial of happiness in marriage. It is presented with a kind of buoyancy which makes it extremely compelling. And it was, in fact, the kind of compromise

6 THE CONCLUSION OF THE MARRIAGE GROUP to which the middle class ultimately came round. But the solution is far from consistent with what the church taught. It may seem so in its emphasis on self-denial and patience; and indeed it does succeed in removing from courtly love what chiefly made that tradition objectionable to the church-adultery. However, it denies the Christian principle of authority. If the Parson's Tale represents what Chaucer considered sound morality, we should compare the Parson's unqualified statement that "a womman sholde be subget to hire housbonde" (X, 929)-that she should obey and serve him. The Parson grants that "womman sholde be felawe unto man" (927) and was not made of Adam's foot because she should not be held too low; but he makes it very clear that "ther as the womman hath the maistrie, she maketh to muche desray" (926). He says nothing to compare with the Franklyn's suggestion that the husband should be "servant in love" (V, 793)-indeed, the Parson says the wife "sholde eek serven hym in alle honestee" (X, 931). More important, the Franklyn's solution has a thoroughly worldly purpose. It is designed, in his own words, to produce bliss, quiet, and rest (V, 744, 760), and from the viewpoint of medieval Christianity these were very limited aims. We have been told of the Franklyn, "To lyven in delit was evere his wone" (I, 335); and in places like the epilogue of the Troilus or the Parson's Tale, Chaucer seems to have agreed with the church that worldly "delit" held all kinds of dangers to the salvation of the soul. One can imagine that Chaucer was interested in the Franklyn's solution to the relatively minor problem of establishing domestic concord. Undoubtedly he saw it as an attitude prevalent in an important part of society. But he presents that attitude with detachment, and there is no reason 227 to suppose that he himself took it as the final word on the more general subject of marriage and chastity.l8 II Chaucer could, then, have wanted to add a tale representing the church's highest ideal, precisely as he had ended the Canterbury Tales with the Parson's Tale and the Troilus with the epilogue. The next tale, the Physician's Tale, is about virginity, but it belongs to the unlinked or "floating" Fragment VI. If Chaucer had not meant to put that fragment here, the next tale would be the Second Nun's Tale, which depicts a chaste marriage. Thus, whichever order we adopt, the tale following the Franklyn's Tale touches upon the ideal of chastity. 18 Chaucer was, like the EPranklyn, a member of the haute bourgeoisie, and the Franklyn's solution, in its even-temperedness and humanity and in its eminent good sense, seems peculiarly "Chaucerian." On the other hand, where Chaucer wished particularly to commend a tale to the reader, he presented the teller as an unusually admirable person (as with the Parson) or effaced the pilgrim (as with the Nun's Priest); yet he has certainly not idealized the Franklyn. In the General Prologue the Franklyn is called "Epicurus owene sone" (I, 336), and much is made of his desire to entertain lavishly and, as it would seem, ostentatiously. As Kittredge pointed out (MP, IX, 458), these ambitions come out naively: the Franklyn complains that his son is lacking in "vertu" and uninterested in "gentillesse" and adds that it would please him more than "twenty pound worth lond" if he would get interested in such things (V, ). The attitude is reflected in his tale. That the young squire Aurelius is naive and literal minded may well have been a convention of the tale, but Chaucer could not have failed to see how the middle-class Franklyn would identify himself with the young squire's enterprising and ambitious nature. The lady, in agreeing to be his love if he removes the rocks which endanger her husband, initiates the sort of courtly exchange which always took the form of an ironic badinage, in which witty by-play was current coin. Aurelius, far from following suit, cries that her request is "an inpossible!" and goes on to drive a bargain with an astrologer, settling for an optical illusion. The tale embodies the middle-class spirit of compromise and the principle of keeping one's word, and these things are treated with enough lightness to discourage the conviction that Chaucer is here advocating anything in propria persona or siding completely with the Franklyn's views. With the Parson's Tale the case is different: the Parson is presented unquestionably as an admirable person, his prologue (X, 15-16, 45-51) indicates that his tale is meant to have a position of finality, and his tale is followed in all complete M5S by Chaucer's own act of penance.

7 228 The Physician's Tale seems the less likely possibility. It is probably an early work. It is limited in its appropriateness to the Physician and is less artistically successful than most of the tales. Originally in Livy and included in the Roman de la Rose, the tale tells of a father who kills his daughter rather than allow her chastity to be violated by a scheming and lecherous magistrate. From the church's point of view this action might not be commendable in all cases; still, it was a father's duty to safeguard his daughter's maidenhood and see her properly married. The remarks on virginity and other moral virtues are all perfectly doctrinal and traditional,l9 and the daughter submits willingly to her death (VI, ), thanking God that she will die a virgin. It is of some interest that the heroine is said to have patience and humility, virtues stressed by the Clerk, and gentillesse, the virtue so much favored by the Franklyn (43-54). And Chaucer adds, as if to leave no doubt of his moral intent, a long passage of advice to parents and governesses about the moral education of children (72-104). It is then possible that at some time in the preparation of the Canterbury Tales Chaucer thought of the Physician's Tale as a foil to the Franklyn's Tale and a reminder of the traditional counsel of perfection. The Second Nun's Tale, the only other tale which could come after the Franklyn's Tale, is more forceful, more artistically effective. Unlike the Physician's Tale, it does not deal with a state of life higher than marriage but with a higher form of marriage itself. For, as we have seen, even within the bonds of marriage, chastity was considered best, so long as it was maintained by the consent of the husband. This, in fact, we find commended by the Parson: "If that a wyf i" For parallels with Ambrose and others see Robinson's notes on ff., p koude kepen hire al chaast by licence of hir housbonde, so that she yeve nevere noon occasion that he agilte, it were to hire a greet merite" (X, 945). Such a marriage is depicted in the Second Nun's Tale. The Wife of Bath, we recall, had deemed it impossible "that any clerk wol speke good of wyves, / But if it be of hooly seintes lyves"; the Second Nun's Tale is exactly that, a saint's legend about a woman-indeed, a married woman. In that saintliness of hers, Cecile differs from any of the Marriage Group wives, though she bears a kind of similarity to them in other respects. She is of "noble kynde," as was Dorigen. She is "ful devout and humble in hir corage," as was Griselde. She is theologically inclined, as was the Wife of Bath. She submits humbly to marriage, but at once gains a kind of sovereignty by the husband's consent, as Dorigen had-she converts him, making him "meke as evere was any lomb," and then leads him into the missionary enterprise to which they devote themselves. But unlike any of the Marriage Group wives, Cecile remains chaste, devotes herself to the church, and, above all, becomes a martyr.20 The uniqueness of Cecile's special vocation is dramatically underscored by parallels between the Second Nun's Tale and the Franklyn's Tale. The marriage of Cecile and Valerian begins with a vow of chastity, to live "with body clene and with unwemmed thoght" (VIII, 225), just as the marriage in the Franklyn's Tale had begun with a vow of courtesy and mutual concession. The husband, with a lack of resistance probable only in hagiography, agrees to baptism and a life of chastity, and he joins Cecile in the destiny of purity and martyrdom which the angel announces to them. The 20 Martyrdom was variously considered equal to or higher than virginity in the grades of perfection. See Bernards, pp

8 THE CONCLUSION OF THE MARRIAGE GROUP marriage here, unlike any previously mentioned, is the vehicle for Christian works and Christian perfection. It is the reverse of the Wife of Bath's voluptuous view of marriage, or of the Merchant's cynical one. But it differs, too, from the Clerk's, for it involves something more than the subjugation of the woman to the man's will. There is a kind of mutuality in their relationship, a lack of any noticeable element of "maistrye." This, of course, is strikingly like the relationship in the Franklyn's Tale, and it points to a crucial contrast. The vow in the Franklyn's Tale is one of mutual concession; its purpose is the establishment of earthly concord. But the vow of the Second Nun's Tale is a mutual subjugation of both their wills to the will of God, and its end is an eternal reward for the worldly toil and trouble to which they submit themselves. This contrast between the worldliness of the Franklyn's Tale and the "otherworldliness" of the Second Nun's Tale is developed within the limits of the vita activa. The life of Cecile and Valerian is not an ascetic one in any strict sensenot one of contemplation or "mortification of the flesh." The immediate, mundane object of their activity is good works and the propagation of the faith. Nor is it anywhere implied that this is the life for all, since Cecile is especially called by an angel. But it is a life of perfectionof good works and virginity, and, significantly, a life ending in martyrdom. The contrast with the Franklyn's Tale is inescapable: the objects of Dorigen and Averagus' marriage are "delit," joy, ease, and prosperity-all those self-centered, temporal ends against which the medieval Christian was constantly being warned. Hence in her prologue, when the Second Nun suggests that faith, wisdom, and good works are a guard against idleness and therefore against sin, she singles out the 229 great weakness in the Franklyn's solution as the church would see it-that it allows a purely domestic comfort to replace the Christian ideals of self-abnegation and good works. Considered in its relation to the Franklyn's Tale, the Second Nun's Prologue, with its conventional strictures against idleness, takes on a special significance, for idleness was conventionally regarded as a state which led to sin.21 The Second Nun begins by calling it "the ministre and the norice unto vices," the "porter of the gate... of delices" (VIII, 1-3). Of the Franklyn, one recalls, it has been said "To lyven in delit was evere his wone" (I, 335). The conventional invocation to the Virgin, too, puts emphasis on virginity and on good works, quoting James 2:17 that "feith is deed withouten werkis" (VIII, 64). In the same way, the third part of the prologue, the interpretation of the name Cecile, singles out "chaastnesse of virginitee" (88) and the "ensample of goode and wise werkes alle" (105). In short, the emphasis of the prologue, as of the tale itself, is on the Christian perfection of virginity and martyrdom and on the Christian duty of good works-those points of Christian morality which the Franklyn's solution so notably disregards. III The notion of the Marriage Group as Kittredge presented it involves the principle of dramatic interplay among the pilgrims, and it was on these grounds that Kittredge named the Franklyn's Tale as its conclusion. Since neither the Physician nor the Second Nun engages in any conversation with other pilgrims, their prologues and tales do fall outside the purely dramatic framework of the Mar- 21 In the literature of courtly love, idleness was the guardian of the gate of love-cf. Knight's Tale, I, In the Parson's Tale it is the gate "of alle harmes" (X, ). Indeed, in the Melibee the mention of idleness leads to a discussion of the proper use of riches (VI1, 1596 ff.).

9 230 riage Group. While some have objected to this notion of dramatic interplay as a principle working in the structure of the Canterbury Tales, it is difficult to deny the thematic relationship which exists among the Marriage Group tales. And it is only on the grounds of this second, thematic aspect that one can argue for the inclusion of other tales within the group. If we are to suggest that Chaucer wanted to add the Second Nun's Tale, or indeed the Physician's Tale, to express a Christian moral, we must take into account the manner in which that tale was appended to an already integrated unit. To be sure, an unanticipated statement of Christian ideals coming at the end of a presumably secular work is not unusual in medieval literature. Critics have been at pains to explain how the Troilus can end with an epilogue urging Christian renunciation when everything that goes before has seemed "courtly," pagan, secular. Similarly, Andreas Capellanus' De amore, after dealing at length with the proper manner of conduct in courtly love, ends unexpectedly with a chapter on the "rejection" of love, in which the author exhorts his pupil to turn his thoughts to God. Even Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for all its concentration on chivalry, ends with the passage in which it is explained that the tiny wound was inflicted because of the knight's undue love of his own life. The pattern occurs again and again in late medieval literaturethe ironic juxtaposition of actual worldly abuses against an unfollowed and never wholly attainable Christian ideal. In dealing with such works, critics tend either to disregard the final Christian statement as merely perfunctory and unfelt, or to interpret the body of the work as ironic and therefore really doctrinal. The Troilus must be either a story of courtly love to which the author appended a perfunctory epilogue, or a Christian work which renounces love altogether. The De amore must be a treatise on love to which the author nervously added a slavish Christian utterance, or else it is a protracted joke and really an attack on love from start to finish. Yet the artistic power of such works springs from the paradox of the juxtaposition itself. We do not go on reading them under the condition that we must choose which part to disregard; we read them rather because they embody a conflict and dialectic of ideas which makes the choice impossible. And these juxtapositions, far from being merely formal devices, reflect the contrarieties immanent in the life of medieval culture.22 It is not going too far to say that this pattern-the tragic imperfection of man's fallen state, represented in the terms of some distinctly worldly pursuit-made possible the high art of the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance.23 If such a juxtaposition of secular material against a final Christian utterance is discernible in the Marriage Group, how is the pattern consistent with the general theme and spirit of the Canterbury Tales? To be sure, one of the fundamental issues in Chaucer criticism has always been the question of whether the Canterbury Tales is merely a miscellany presented through the conventional device of the frame narrative or an integrated work which might properly be said to have a theme. As with all such questions, it is impossible to exclude entirely either possibility; but the nature of the problem itself points to a central fact about Chaucer, whether it 22 On the relation of formal effects like irony to the cultural background of a poem see Roy Harvey Pearce, "Historicism Once More," Kenyon Review, XX (1958), Cf. Willard Farnham, The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy (Oxford, 1956), pp See also D. H. Howard, "Hamlet and the Contempt of the World," South Atlantic Quarterly, LVIII (1959),

10 THE CONCLUSION OF THE MARRIAGE GROUP reveals a theme or not. For in order to formulate a hypothesis about the theme or pervading spirit of the Canterbury Tales, it is necessary to take into account both the author's fascination with things and problems of a secular nature and his inclusion among the tales of writings decidedly Christian in spirit. This apparent conflict, in no way inconsistent with medieval thought, can most effectively be formulated, and most satisfactorily resolved, by using the phrase the "human condition"-a phrase, though often attributed to Montaigne, which was current well before Chaucer's time. The correct title of Pope Innocent III's "De contemptu mundi," a classic of the late Middle Ages which Chaucer himself claimed to have translated, was De miseria humance conditionis.24 As Pope Innocent conceived it, the human condition was associated with the transitoriness of the common world, the imperfection of man, and the futility of secular pursuits. Such a notion, however, implied the corollary thatdespite the limitations of humanity-man had dignity and was capable, in some partial and limited way, of achieving perfection and human greatness. Indeed, Pope Innocent himself, at the opening of his classic treatment of the human condition, promised to write a treatise on the dignity of human nature, Christo favente.25 The Canterbury Tales develops this theme of the human condition-the human imperfection which limits human dignity. The General Prologue, in describing the pilgrims, at once begins to unveil the imperfections of each-from the peccadilloes of the Prioress, through the hy- 24 See edition by Michele Maccarrone (Lugano, 1955), pp. xxxii-xxxv. 25 Ibid., pp. xxxvii f. See Charles E. Trinkaus, Adversity's Noblemen: The Italian Humanists on Happiness (New York, 1940), pp , 68-79, and passim; and The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Ernst Cassirer et al. (Chicago, 1948). 231 pocrisy of the Monk and the Friar, to the out-and-out decadence and evil of the Summoner and the Pardoner. The ending of the work, the Parson's Tale, is a sermon on penitence, the means by which man can obtain God's forgiveness- "the wey, in this viage, / Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrymage / That highte Jeru- salem celestial" (X, 49-51)-indeed, at the very end the author himself makes an act of penance, in propria persona. Still, the great originality of the Canterbury Tales, and the thing which catches the attention of the modern reader, is not this general theme of human imperfection but the tolerant humanity of the author, his detached and ironic treatment of men's sins and frailties. Of this, the Pardoner's Prologue and Tale are the supreme example: the Pardoner's terrible secrets-his physical imperfection, and the torment of guilt which he suffers inwardly over his moral imperfection come forth at the end of his tale, the most terrifying reminder anywhere in Chaucer of human weakness, of men's awful need for God's mercy; but even here Chaucer makes no condemnation.26 Central as they are to the general theme of human frailty in the Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner's Prologue and Tale are in the floating Fragment VI, whose position in the order of tales is uncertain. It is not hard to see why. Chaucer had ended the General Prologue with the description of the Pardoner, the most evil of the pilgrims, and he undoubtedly wanted to find some crucial point for his revealing prologue and tale. But where, in a work not yet complete, was one to put something so central? Because the Canterbury Tales, taken an as integrated work, is far from secular 26 See Alfred L. Kellogg. "An Augustinian Interpretation of Chaucer's Pardoner," Speculum, XXVI (1951), Too little attention has been given to this excellent article; ostensibly a study of the Pardoner's character, it is in effect a study of the background in medieval ideas of what is popularly called Chaucer's "humanity."

11 232 in its theme and emphasis, it would be the more surprising if, in the Marriage Group, Chaucer had really advocated and approved the Franklyn's highly secular attitude. Yet, of course, the Canterbury Tales is not quite an "integrated" work, for it is unfinished. And it is really, in this instance, the incompleteness of the work which betrays the specific character of Chaucer's opinions and mode of thought. What we know is this: according to the best evidence Fragment V is followed by Fragment VIII, with Fragment VI tentatively but not certainly coming between.27 This means that Chaucer got as far as the Franklyn's Tale. As we have seen, he very likely considered at different times both the Physician's Tale and the Second Nun's Tale as appropriate tales to follow the Franklyn's, but it was a point on which he wavered. We are left with a tale of virginity and a tale involving a chaste marriage-either one a possible Christian ending for the Marriage Group; but the first, the Physician's Tale, is far from appropriate to its teller, and the second, the Second Nun's Tale, appears at some point to have been attributed to another pilgrim.28 And from an artistic point of view it seems impossible that the high art of the Marriage Group should end in a pedestrian treatment of the theme virginity-or-death, or with a mere saint's legend-these inclosing, like so much filler, the magnificent prologue and tale of the Pardoner. The indecision itself shows us how much Chaucer was attracted to the Franklyn's solution. We see what part of his in- 27 See Pratt, PMLA, LXVI, , and Dempster, PMLA, LXVIII, Both are in agreement on this point. Mrs. Dempster conjectures that Chaucer was reserving space for more tales between IV-V and VIII, but she gives no reasons. 28 See tentions was clear, what part was not: the Franklyn's middle-class compromise springs in a natural, unified way from the tales before it, but the Christian ending, the counsel of perfection, is never clearly decided upon. Still, this does not mean that the Franklyn's view is "what Chaucer thought about marriage." It means, rather, that however much Chaucer found it a clear solution, a possible and interesting one, he remained hesitant to desert the idea of perfection which the church taught. That wavering, that uncertainty, is here what defines the poet's frame of mind. To suppose that he was "ahead of his time" in his secular views, we must ignore the religious bias which we find elsewhere. To suppose on the other hand that he was imbued with the church's doctrines to such an extent that any secular tale is really only a dark allegory of the Fall and a lesson in charity, we must wrench the plain sense of secular tales. His thought is the more typical of his age because it reveals an interest in the secular held uneasily in check by Christian and ascetic strictures. And that conflict of secular interests with ascetic "values" was the moral ambivalence with which Christianity had always struggled. The Christian notion of perfection, possible because of human dignity but limited by the human condition of frailty, poses the great dilemma which underlies the period of secularization during which Chau- cer lived-that while one must acknowledge the imperfection of the transitory world and work to make it more nearly perfect, one must at the same time remember the futility of seeking in the world that perfection which can exist only in a world beyond. OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY