Father Chaucer: Generating Authority in The Canterbury Tales (Oxford Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture)

The monograph series Oxford Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture showcases the plurilingual and multicultural quality of medieval literature and actively seeks to promote research that not only focuses on the array of subjects medievalists now pursue -- in literature, theology, and philosophy, in social, political, jurisprudential, and intellectual history, the history of art, and the history of science -- but also that combines these subjects productively. It offers innovative studies on topics that may include, but are not limited to, manuscript and book history; languages and literatures of the global Middle Ages; race and the post-colonial; the digital humanities, media and performance; music; medicine; the history of affect and the emotions; the literature and practices of devotion; the theory and history of gender and sexuality, ecocriticism and the environment; theories of aesthetics; medievalism. When Geoffrey Chaucer is named the 'Father of English poetry', an inherent assumption about paternity is transmitted. Chaucer's 'fatherhood' is presented as a means of poetic legitimization, a stable mode of authority that connects the medieval author with all the successive generations of English writers. This book argues, however, that for Chaucer himself, paternity was a far more fraught ambition, one capable of devastating male identity as surely as it could enshrine it. Moving away from anachronistic assumptions about reproduction and authority, this book argues that Chaucer profoundly struggled with his own desire to create something that would last past his own death. For Chaucer also believed that men were the humble, mortal playthings of an all too distant God. Medieval Christianity taught that the earth was but a temporary, sorrowful abode for corrupted men, and that the fall from grace was reborn within each generation of Adam's sons. Chaucer knew that God had set sharp limits upon man's ability to create with certainty, and to determine his own posterity. Yet, what could be more human than the longing to wrest some small authority from one's own mortal flesh? This book argues that this essential intellectual, ethical, and religious crisis lies at the very heart of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales . Within this masterpiece of English literature, Chaucer boldly confronts the impossibility of his own aching wish to see his offspring, biological and poetic, last beyond his own death, to claim the authority simultaneously promised and denied by the very act of creation. The monograph series Oxford Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture showcases the plurilingual and multicultural quality of medieval literature and actively seeks to promote research that not only focuses on the array of subjects medievalists now pursue in literature, theology, and philosophy, in social, political, jurisprudential, and intellectual history, the history of art, and the history of science but also that combines these subjects productively. It offers innovative studies on topics that may include, but are not limited to, manuscript and book history; languages and literatures of the global Middle Ages; race and the post-colonial; the digital humanities, media and performance; music; medicine; the history of affect and the emotions; the literature and practices of devotion; the theory and history of gender and sexuality, ecocriticism and the environment; theories of aesthetics; medievalism. Geoffrey Chaucer has long been lauded as the'Father of English Poetry.'For later authors and scholars, the late medieval poet has served as a symbol of male authority and literary paternity upon whom successive centuries of the English canon may comfortably rest. Yet for Chaucer himself, the idea of paternity—whether poetic or biological—was far from stable or reassuring. Reading Chaucer's masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, alongside its theological, poetic, and scientific contemporaries, this book argues that Chaucer was fascinated by the promise offered by metaphors of reproduction, paternity, and lineage. However, in the wake of the Black Death, Hundred Years'War, and other demographic crises, Chaucer could not help but perceive paternal authority as a transitory, uncertain ambition, one capable of devastating male authority as surely as it could enshrine it. Likewise, medieval Christian doctrine taught that the earth was but a temporary, sorrowful abode for corrupt, mortal men, who committed a form of blasphemy by longing for earthly memorializations of their lives. Chaucer knew that God had set sharp limits upon man's ability to create with certainty and to determine his own posterity. Still, what could be more human than the longing to wrest some small authority from one's own flesh? This book argues that within The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer consistently confronted the impossibility of men's desire to see their offspring—both biological and poetic—last beyond their own deaths, to claim the authority simultaneously promised and denied by the very act of creation. Cover Father Chaucer: Generating Authority in The Canterbury Tales Copyright Acknowledgements Contents Introduction: The Dream of “Father Chaucer” Fortunate Fathers Mortal Man and the Dream of Authority SECTION I: ON CERTAINTY 1: Sexual Exegetics and the Female Text The Manciple’s Tale and the Erasure of Certainty “For by assay ther may no man hit preve . . .” “To wrye the wombe . . .” Conclusion 2: The Uneasy Institution: Lineage and the Wife of Bath Usurping Primogeniture: The Wife of Bath as Heir Against Male Time Sterile Futures, Sterile Pasts: The Hag Against Heredity Literary Lineage SECTION II: ON CREATION 3: Uncertain Labor: Conception and the Problem of Productivity Conceiving with God: the Second Nun’s Tale Conceiving with Chemistry: the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale Alternative Conceptions 4: Adultery’s Heirs: Multiplying Excess Against Sufficiency: The Productivity of Excess and Absence in the Summoner’s Tale Multiplying Problems in the Pardoner’s Tale The Monstrous Heirs of Greed: Chaucer’s Cuckolds and their Cuckoos Avarice and its Inheritances SECTION III: ON LIKENESS 5: Almost Heirs: Daughters and Disappointments Imperfect Animals Incest and the Erotics of Unlikeness Recognizing the Daughter, Part I: Islam as Irreconcilable Difference Recognizing the Daughter, Part II: Likeness and its Litigations at King Alla’s Court Recognizing the Daughter, Part III: Custance’s Likeness, Maurice’s Lineage Coming After Chaucer: The Man of Law as Chaucer’s Heir 6: Father Chaucer’s Heirs Fallen Fathers and the Dream of the Tredefowel The End (and the Beginning) of Father Chaucer Bibliography Primary Sources Secondary Sources Index "When Geoffrey Chaucer is named the 'Father of English poetry', an inherent assumption about paternity is transmitted. Chaucer's 'fatherhood' is presented as a means of poetic legitimization, a stable mode of authority that connects the medieval author with all the successive generations of English writers. This book argues, however, that for Chaucer himself, paternity was a far more fraught ambition, one capable of devastating male identity as surely as it could enshrine it. Moving away from anachronistic assumptions about reproduction and authority, this book argues that Chaucer profoundly struggled with his own desire to create something that would last past his own death. For Chaucer also believed that men were the humble, mortal playthings of an all too distant God. Medieval Christianity taught that the earth was but a temporary, sorrowful abode for corrupted men, and that the fall from grace was reborn within each generation of Adam's sons. Chaucer knew that God had set sharp limits upon man's ability to create with certainty, and to determine his own posterity. Yet, what could be more human than the longing to wrest some small authority from one's own mortal flesh? This book argues that this essential intellectual, ethical, and religious crisis lies at the very heart of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Within this masterpiece of English literature, Chaucer boldly confronts the impossibility of his own aching wish to see his offspring, biological and poetic, last beyond his own death, to claim the authority simultaneously promised and denied by the very act of creation"-- Provided by publisher Paternity is a powerful metaphor for literary authority and legitimacy, and thus Geoffrey Chaucer has been granted the supposedly supreme honor of being termed the 'father of English poetry.' And yet, as this book argues, the idea of paternity as unchallenged authority is a far more modern construct. For Chaucer, the ability to create with certainty, with assurance in one's own posterity, was the ardent dream that haunted human men. It was, however, a dream defined by its impossibility. For Chaucer and his peers occupied a fallen world, one in which all true authority belonged to God alone. This book argues that man's struggle to create something that would last beyond death is at the very heart of The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer faces his own desire as a poet and a man to sire something that will last within the world. But Chaucer also knew deeply that such a dream would remain always out of reach for mortal men. And so Chaucer's Tales taunts men with the multiple breakdowns of human generation, the insufficiencies of human cognition, genius, and hereditary institutions. Yet Chaucer also makes it clear that he counts himself among this humble species, a fellow pilgrim beset by the longing to wrest some small authority from the sum of his own flesh.--description provided by publisher This volume offers a fresh interpretation of Geoffrey Chaucer both as a poet and as a man. Taking as its starting point the idea of Chaucer as the 'Father of English Poetry', the book explores how the poet's thoughts on paternity and creativity lie at the heart of The Canterbury Tales.