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Destiny in Chaucer's Troilus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is a tragedy, strongly deterministic in tone, the action of which is presided over by a complex and inescapable destiny. Professor Kittredge has already given an excellent exposition of the fate which hangs over the chief characters and over the doomed city of Troy, and has analyzed the sources of the feeling that we are “looking on at a tragedy that we are powerless to check or to avert.” And Professor Root, remarking upon the high seriousness and the moral import of Chaucer's poem, says:
He has called Troilus a tragedy; and it is a tragedy in the mediæval sense of the term—the story of a man cast down by adverse fortune from great prosperity and high estate into misery and wretchedness. The five books into which he has disposed his story suggests the five acts of the tragic drama. There is, moreover, a quite tragic insistence on the idea of destiny.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930
References
1 G. L. Kittredge, Chaucer and His Poetry, pp. 112-117.
2 R. K. Root, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, p. xlix.
See the same author's The Poetry of Chaucer, rev. ed. pp. 117, 125, ff.
3 Boethius, De consolatione philosophie, trans. Chaucer, ed. Skeat, Book IV, Prose VI, 45-100. (See B. L. Jefferson, Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, p. 118.)
4 Idem, 100-110.
5 On Fortune see Book II, Proses ii, vii, etc., and Jefferson, op. cit., pp. 49. The interested reader should consult H. R. Patch's illuminating book, The Goddess Fortuna, pp. 18. ff.
6 Bk. II, M. viii; III, M. vi. Jefferson, op. cit., p. 65.
7 Bk. V, Pr. i. Jefferson, op. cit., p. 62.
8 W. C. Curry, Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences, New York, 1926, pp. 119-149.
9 The Oxford Chaucer, ed. W. W. Skeat, C. T., E, 1966-1976.
10 Curry, op. cit., pp. 91-118.
11 Ibid., pp. 164-171.
12 Ibid., pp. 171-194.
13 Meteorologica I. 2. Quoted from T. O. Wedel, The Mediæval Attitude toward Astrology, p. 3.
14 Introductorium in Astronomiam, Augsburg, 1489, bk. 3, chap. i. I have quoted the excellent summary of Wedel, op. cit., p. 57.
15 Though this conception is not necessary for our understanding of the destiny back of Chaucer's Troilus, I have given an exposition of it because the relations between Nature and destiny (or fate) and fortune do not seem to be generally understood. See H. R. Patch, The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaeval Literature, 1927, pp. 65, 75 ff., 78.
16 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, N.Y., 1923, I, 620.
17 See, for example, Curry, op. cit., pp. 119-194.
18 A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy, N.Y., 1926, p. 45.
19 Cf. Boethius, 2, m. 8, and Root, op. cit., pp. 415, 493.
20 Cf. Boethius, 2, m.1; 2, pr. 2; Troilus, p. 425; B. L. Jefferson, Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, pp. 49-60.
21 'Ali ibn Abí Al-Rajjál (Abú Hasan), Liber in judicijs astrorum, Ventiis, 1485, pp. 120-121. (Cf. Thorndike, op. cit., I, 680-82).
22 Ibid., p. 125.
23 Curry, op. cit., pp. 97-100.
24 On the seventh house, see Curry, op. cit., p. 172, note, and p. 173, Plate V. Cf. also Root, Troilus, p. 446.
25 See Libellus ysagogicvs Abdilazi ... qui dicitvr Alchabitivs, Venetiis, 1485, sig. bbar, and the Commentary of John of Saxony, sig mm,v.; Albohazen Haly, op. cit., p. 117.
26 Root, op. cit., p. 446.
27 Root, Troilus, p. 463.
28 Idem.
29 Idem.
30 Chaucer is astrologically correct in attributing this deluge of rain to the “great conjunction” of Luna, Saturn, and Jupiter in the “watery sign,” Cancer. One early anonymous writer says that such a conjunction produces “submersiones et diluuia et secundum quantitatem fortitudinem in loco erit euentus,” Opusculum repertorii in mutationes aeris tam via astrologica tam metheorologica, Venetiis, 1485, p. 18v. See also R. K. Root and H. N. Russell, “A Planetary Date for Chaucer's Troilus,” P.M.L.A., XXXIX, 58 ff. Considering this conjunction astronomically, Professor Root in most admirable manner dates the poem not earlier than 1385, ibid., p. 63. He holds, further, that Chaucer possibly intended this conjunction “should suggest to his readers the impending downfall of the kingdom of Troy,” ibid., p. 62. I should like to believe this, but it does not seem to me likely. However, for the influence of such a conjunction upon kings, kingdoms, and peoples, see Albumasar, De magis coniunctionibus, annorum, revolutionibus, ac eorum profectionibus, Augsburg, 1489, sigs. B1-B3.
31 Albubather, Liber nativitatum de Arabico in Latinum translatus, Venetiis, 1501, B4v.
32 Ibid., “De natis multi coitus,” cap. 76, “De natis pauci coitus,” cap. 77, C2v.
33 Quoted in Abraham ibn Ezra, De nativitatibus, Venetiis, 1484, sig b7.
34 See Root, Troilus, p. 476. For the nature of Saturn, see Curry, op. cit., 129-130.
35 Op. cit., p. 120.
36 On the beneficence of Jupiter, see Curry, op. cit., 167.
37 Root, Troilus, p. 476.
38 Cf. Boethius, 2, m 8, and Root, Troilus, p. 493 ff.
39 Root, Troilus, pp. 494, lxxi, and The Textual Tradition of Chaucer's Troilus, Chaucer Society, pp. 155-57.
40 Op. cit., p. 120.
41 Root, Troilus, pp. lxxi, 517; The Poetry of Chaucer, rev. ed., p. 117; The Textual Tradition oj Chaucer's Troilus, pp. 216-20.
42 T. R. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, New York, 1892, III, 372.
43 A. W. Ward, Chaucer (Eng. Men of Letters, Morley), New York, p. 92.
44 P.M.L.A., XI, 311.
45 J. M. Manly, Kittredge Anniversary Papers, p. 77.
46 R. K. Root, The Poetry of Chaucer, rev. ed., p. 117.
47 G. L. Kittredge, Chaucer and His Poetry, p. 115.
48 T. R. Price, P.M.L.A., XI, 311.
49 Courthope, History of English Poetry, New York, 1895, I, 262.
50 Ten Brink, B.: History of Early English Poetry, trans. W. C. Robinson, New York, 1893, II, 92.
51 H. R. Patch, “Troilus on Predestination,” Jour. Eng. Germc. Philol., XVII, 3.
52 Ibid., p. 23.
53 Troilus, p. xli.
54 Ibid., p. lxiii.
55 He does indeed suggest as a general proposition that God disposes all things according to their merits (IV, 965), but Troilus's merits or demerits in the sight of God do not seem to have anything to do with what comes upon him. That is to say, Troilus is not in any sense a criminal; at worst he is only blindly human.
56 Bk. V, pr. 3. See Root, Troilus, pp. 517-20; Patch, op. cit., pp. 6-7.
57 Root, Troilus, p. 517; Boethius, Bk. V, pr. 4-6.
58 Patch, op. cit., pp. 8-12.
59 Ibid., pp. 11-12.
60 Chaucer and the Mediæval Sciences, p. 209.
61 See Root, Troilus, p. 553, note to 1. 1451.
62 Ibid., pp. 553-56.
63 Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. IV, pr. VI, 1. 104 (Chaucer's translation).
64 Ibid., ll. 130-35.
65 Summa Theologica, I. I. 115.4. I quote from Wedel's translation, The Mediæval Attitude toward Astrology, p. 68.
66 T. R. Price, “Troilus and Criseyde,” PMLA, XI, 314. Professor Price is so eager to show that the Troilus is modern in its dramatic quality (p. 310) and in the “inevitable deduction of human action from purely human motives” (p. 311) that he concludes: “There is the same scornful rejection of the supernatural element (p. 311) . . . He [Chaucer] holds back from all use of supernatural means to influence human action.” (p. 313) It seems to me, however, that Chaucer has made human action more rational by referring it to those mysterious destinal forces—superhuman or supernormal—through which, along with the destiny inherent in human character, the plans of Providence are executed.
67 From “Epistle to Can Grande,” tr. Barrett H. Clark, European Theories of the Drama, Cincinnati, 1918, p. 47.
68 Consolation of Philosophy, Bk. 2, pr. 2, 78-80.
69 For example, see Root, Troilus, pp. xlix, 409.
70 Op. cit., p. 310.
71 See Professor Price's analysis, op. cit., pp. 313-322. Was Chaucer acquainted with the five acts of Senecan tragedy?
72 I cannot agree with Professor Price that the action of the story grows only out of character. And one may question his making Criseyde the chief character of the drama (op. cit., p. 308); her character is highly developed in order that it may serve, among other things, as a powerful destinal force in the life of Troilus, the protagonist.
73 See Price, op. cit., p. 319.
74 See my forthcoming study, “The Mediaeval Basis of Shakespeare's Tragic Practice.”
75 Quoted from Barrett H. Clark, European Theories of the Drama, p. 416.
76 I conclude, therefore, that, since Chaucer has created a tragedy which is artistically so far in advance of mediæval theory and practice, he must be conscious of that fact and is probably satirizing not only the Monk but also the mediæval conception of tragedy when he defines it in the prologue to the Monk's Tale and illustrates it with those monstrosities of rhetorical dullness called ‘tragedies’. Or, if he could conceive no better theory than that of his contemporaries, at least his genius has enabled him to create a tragedy which successfully transcends the theory.
77 On the reasons for Chaucer's denial of the courtly love embodied in Troilus, see G. L. Kittredge, Chaucer and His Poetry, p. 143, and Karl Young, “Chaucer's Renunciation of Love,” Mod. Lang. Notes, XL, 270 ff.
78 On the paganism in the poem and Chaucer's renunciation of it in the Epilog, see J. S. P. Tatlock's “The Epilog of Chaucer's Troilus,” Mod. Philol., XVIII, 625-59.
79 For a discussion of Ralph Strode, philosopher of Merton College, Oxford, and his relation to the Ralph Strode, who was elected Common Pleader of the City of London, see Root, Troilus, p. 564; Israel Gollancz, Dict. Natl. Biog., under Strode; E. P. Kuhl, “Some Friends of Chaucer,” PMLA, XXIX, 272-75; Edith Rickert, London Times Lit. Sup., Oct. 4, 1928, p. 707; H. W. Garrod, ibid., Oct. 11, 1928, p. 736. For an indication of the philosophical Strode's probable adverse attitude toward an entirely deterministic philosophy see Wyclif's Responsiones ad Radulphum Strodum, National Library of Vienna, MS. 2603, now No. 62 of Rotographs of Manuscripts and Rare Printed Books, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
80 Op. cit., p. 636.
81 See Root, Troilus, pp. lxxii, 559-60.
82 Chaucer gets the materials for the stanzas on Troilus's flight to heaven from the Teseide of Boccaccio, who in turn is dependent for the idea upon Cicero's Somnium Scipionis. It should be observed, however, that Clement and Origen elaborated the same conception. See Origen, De principiis, II, cap. iii, tr. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, IV, 274.
83 Root, Troilus, p. 1.
84 Ibid.