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Medieval Rhetoric in the Book of the Duchesse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Benjamin S. Harrison
Benjamin S. Harrison*
Affiliation:
University of Redlands (Calif.)
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Extract

Considerable interest has been manifested of late regarding Chaucer's rhetoric. This was occasioned by the French medievalist, Edmond Farai, when in 1924 he edited five poetical treatises which had circulated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Professor Manly in 1926 in a lecture delivered to the British Academy, concluded that the poet had in all probability studied these texts, and that much of his technical art was learned from them, rather than from his French models, as had formerly been supposed. Two years later, Professor Baldwin climaxed his Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic with a concluding chapter on Chaucer's technique, which records the poet's reaction to such doctrines as these works contain. During the past year, PMLA has published three articles related either to Chaucerian rhetoric or the medieval manuals. Two of these, following the thesis of Manly, assume quite definitely that Faral's treatises exerted a primary influence upon the mind of Chaucer. All these studies are based upon a comparison of only the Chaucerian works and the Latin manuals. Consideration has not been given to the poet's source material as a third element of correlation.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , June 1934 , pp. 428 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934

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References

1 Les Arts Poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe Siècle.

2 “Chaucer and the Rhetoricians,” Warton Lecture on English Poetry XVII.

3 Ibid., pp. 6, 8.

4 Agnes K. Getty, “The Medieval-Modern Conflict in Chaucer's Poetry.” Marie P. Hamilton, “Notes on Chaucer and the Rhetoricians.” Florence E. Teager, “Chaucer's Eagle and the Rhetorical Colors.” All in PMLA, xlvii (June, 1932).

5 The last two above.

6 Miss Teager's article on the Hous of Fame could not be expected to deal with sources, since no sources are known for this work.

7 The chief Old French sources of the Book of the Duchesse are: Paradys d'Amours (Froissart); Le Jugement dou Roy de Navarre, La Fonteinne Amoureuse, Le Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne, Le Dit dou Lyon, Remede de Fortune, Le Confort d'Ami (Machant); Roman de la Rose (De Lorris, De Meun). See G. L. Kittredge, “Machaut and the Book of the Duchesse,” PMLA, xxx (1915), 1–24.

8 Op. cit., p. 20.

9 Matthieu de Vendôme, Ars Versificatoria. Geoffrey de Vinsauf, Nova Poetria; Documentum de modo et arte dictandi et versificandi; Summa de Coloribus Rhetoricis. Evrard l'Allemand, Laborintus. To this list might be added John of Garland's “Poetria,” in Romanische Forschungen, xiii (1902), 883 ff.

10 “Le Roman de la Rose,” publié par E. Langlois, Société des Anciens Textes Français, i (1914), ii (1920), et iii (1921).

11 “Digressio similiter ampliat et decorat materiam.” Documentum, p. 274.

12 In quoting Chaucer I follow the text of MS. Bodley Fairfax 16, as given by H. N. MacCracken in The College Chaucer (Yale University Press, 1929).

13 E. Hoepffner, ed., “Œuvres de Guillaume de Machaut,” Société des Anciens Textes Français (Paris, 1908), iii.

14 Ibid.

15 See also in La Fonteinne the digression on Ceyx and Alcyone (ll. 543–698), imitated by Chaucer. Jean de Meun soon after beginning his part of the Roman de la Rose devotes a vast digression to Fortune.

16 Hoepffner, op. cit., ii, ll. 3999–4006.

17 In this matter of nomenclature, I regret not being able to agree completely with Miss Teager's delightful article. She excludes from her list of rhetorical colors the ten tropes, or the difficultas ornata, and is inclined to leave out also the “figures of thought,” thus reducing the original number of sixty-five figures inherited from the Ad Herennium to about thirty-five (p. 413). For so doing she does seem to have the sanction of Matthieu de Vendôme (see Ars. p. 178), but certainly not of Geoffrey de Vinsauf, the only teacher, by the way, whom Chaucer is actually known to have read. De Vinsauf, in all his three works, clearly and repeatedly refers to both the ten “difficult ornaments” and the “figures of thought” as “colors.” See Nova Poetria, ll. 944, 952–954, 960–962, 1022–23, 1036–37, 1230–32, 1264, 1583–87. Documentum, pp. 285, 289, 291–292, 303. Summa, pp. 325–326. It is this larger and, I believe, equally authoritative sense of the term which I have used in the article above, and also in my recent doctoral dissertation, The Colors of Rhetoric in Chaucer (Yale University Library).

18 Étude sur Geoffrey Chaucer considéré comme Imitateur des Trouvères (1859), p. 292.

19 “The Book of the Duchesse and Guillaume de Machaut,” Modern Philology, vii (1910), 462.

20 Hoepffner, i, 64, ll. 177–87.

21 Hoepffner, ii, ll. 215–228.

22 Another frequentatio appears in Machaut's Remede, Hoepffner's ed., ii, 41, ll. 1129–54.

23 An assertion authorized by Skeat (i, 488).—I feel confident in claiming that this passage from Chaucer and the preceding one embody the figure of frequentatio inasmuch as Farai quotes a passage from Old French poetry quite similar in form and substance as an example of the same figure (p. 67).

24 There is danger that the reader will confuse the hyperbole with the exemplum. I make this distinction: The exemplum refers to a person or thing for the purpose of making comparisons: the hyperbole is merely an exaggerated assertion.

25 Book of the Duchesse, ll. 405–409 (cf. Roman, ll. 8427–30); 805–809 (cf. Behaingne, ll. 281–285); 817–830 (cf. Behaingne, ll. 286–290); and 971–976 (cf. Remede, ll. 167–174).

26 Ll. 435–437; 1244–49.

27 “Chaucer shows good taste in avoiding Machaut's mixture of sacred and profane writers.” Kittredge, “Machaut and the Book of the Duchesse,” PMLA, xxx (1915), 19–20. Chaucer “inserts a little bit of learning about the death of Hector and Antilochus (1065–71). It is certainly malapropos, but is of some value as a landmark in Chaucer's literary travels, for it doubtless comes from the Roman de Troie.” (Ibid., p. 20, n. 50.)

28 In Remede occurs the popular exemplum of Nebuchadnezzar (ll. 1001–16). Le Confort has a profusion of examples from the Old Testament (ll. 73–410; 451–646; 661–954; 955–1287; 1353–1548; 1611–38; 1779–86; 1703–20), including a list of fifteen worthies (ll. 2797–2805). All these are clearly intended to stuff the work. Into Le Jugement dou Roy de Navarre are inserted the illustrative stories of Dido (ll. 2095–2130), Thesus and Ariadne (ll. 2707–69), Jason and Medea (2770–2804), Pyramus and Thisbe (ll. 3171–79), and finally Hero and Leander (ll. 3221–98). Le Dit dou Lyon, in the manner of the quotation cited above, contains a list of thirteen worthies (ll. 1314–21). In La Fonteinne we find the episode of Ceyx and Alcyone (ll. 543–698) imitated by Chaucer, and the marriage of Peleus and the Judgment of Paris (ll. 1633–2144); and the dream of the hundred Roman senators (ll. 2641–98); in Le Dit d'Alerion, the stories of the French king who punished his bird for attacking an eagle (ll. 3401–3530), and Guillaume de Longue-Épée and the horse of St. Louis (2091–2304).

29 Hoepffner, ii, lxx.

30 Ibid., i, lxxiii.

31 Œuvres de Watriquet de Couvin, ed. Scheler (1868), ll. 3–4.

32 Hoepffner, loc. cit.

33 Langlois ed. ll. 49–55; 55–58; 1367–84; 8411–13; 8427–30. Meon ed. (Paris, 1814), ll. 12992–99.

34 For an example in Machaut, see La Fonteinne, ll. 1349–70. Cf. Kittredge, Chaucer and His Poetry, p. 70.

35 E. Hoepffner, op. cit., iii, xxxii.

36 Faral, op. cit., pp. 148–149.

37 See footnote 33.

38 Ll. 129–138.

39 The Romaunt of the Rose, ll. 139–146.

40 I have placed the rhetorician's lines last in the series because they are oldest of the three works, and the farthest removed in point of content from Chaucer's version.

41 G. L. Kittredge, “The Book of the Duchesse and Guillaume de Machaut,” M. P., vii, 4.

42 For a discussion of each of these items, with historical connections, see D. S. Fansler, Chaucer and the Roman de la Rose (1914), pp. 90–2. This same method of enumerating physical qualities appears also in the description of Ydlenesse. See Roman de la Rose, ll. 525–550, and Chaucer's Romaunt, ll. 539–561. The Squire apologizes for not using the method in describing Canacee (F. 40). Cf. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, i. 5. 251–257.

43 Virginia in the Physician's Tale has golden hair (C. 38); also Ydlenesse (Roman, l. 527; Romaunt, ll. 539–540); and Machaut's lady in Le Confort (l. 2163).

44 Chaucer and his Poetry, p. 66.

45 “Chaucer and the Rhetoricians,” Warton Lecture on English Poetry, xvii (1926), 11.

46 See italics, item 2.

47 See italics, item 6.

48 See item 10.

49 Cf. Behaingne, ll. 302–303, 304–307, 322, 330, 362.