"Divine Diplomacy and Audience Responsibility in Chaucer"

Hello, all!

Here's a very slightly revised version of the proposal I sent to Candace:

In this paper I am pursuing the hypothesis that Chaucer holds up the "diplomatic work" of sacred intercessors as a mirror to his audiences, a recurring reminder that in the Christian cosmology as in the perceivable world of social politics, one’s own relevance will depend on one’s relationship to someone else.

In Chaucer’s version of Deguilleville’s Marian ABC, the speaker-supplicant represents himself as one in the know, having spent some time asking around to get the “Wherefor and whi,” the back story of the internal diplomacy that has forged a peace between God and his undeserving human subjects. Conspicuously mindful of the many aspects of Mary’s position, the supplicant advances his petition by acknowledging that the Blessed Virgin is the only “mene” between himself and the divine power that determines his fate, a power that “granteth no pitee” whatsoever without Mary’s approval. Pious appeals in Chaucer often question the relationship between heavenly values and worldly affairs through irony and comic incongruities. Yet Jesus, his mother, and other saints are sometimes invoked in ways that produce a potentially more discomfiting tension, roping the audience into the cosmic politics of the Chaucerian imaginative world(s) by including the audience in communal prayer. In appeals on behalf of Criseyde, the Chaucerian audience is called not only to formulate opinions about a story’s characters as social actors, but also to take an active role in representing these characters charitably to some party or parties beyond themselves. In other words, the audience is placed in the intercessory role elsewhere occupied by Mary and the saints.

I situate this argument within a broader movement to re-introduce questions of belief into the study of Chaucer, focusing in particular on how Christian beliefs and relational ethics intersect. This paper brings ecclesiastical and social histories together to contextualize Chaucer's representation of relationships with the political community and the communion of saints as negotiated through similar means. Exploring the intercessory relationships central to both offers insight into Chaucer’s worldview and his ethical engagement with humanity.

My questions:

1) I'm also wondering how much of Chaucer I should attempt to cover here. I initially wrote to Candace planning to work with the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, but I think I could change my textual focus between now and next month. (No, CT are not mentioned in the above proposal, just for the sake of clarity and conciseness. I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to cover so much. But I will be glad to elaborate if it seems important for me to follow through on that initial intention to work with the CT. For starters, the Prioress's Tale offers some interesting examples of the intercession trope.) Thoughts about scope from those of you with more experience than I have?

2) As a grad student, I just don't yet feel I know how to frame an argument with optimum interest and clarity, for delivery at a conference. As an audience member, what topic from my proposal would you want to hear more about? Anything you would just yawn about?

Thanks!

Beth

“Chaucer’s Affective Vocabulary”

Greetings, everyone - This is an expansion of the précis I sent to Candace.

I am interested in how Chaucer, as a diplomat, would have described restraint or tact in his works. The concept of “tact” is expressed in Chaucer’s time, but the word itself is not attested by the OED until well afterward. Chaucer uses “feeling” where modern English speakers might use “tact” – an interesting detail, as both words are semantically linked with ideas of touching and being touched, both physically and emotionally.

In my paper I will explore this and other aspects of what I’m calling Chaucer’s affective vocabulary, charting the semantic range of Chaucer’s terms “feeling” and “feele” as well as “rewen,” looking at the context of these terms, and seeing where analogues and sources can illuminate them. The list grows as one thinks of other terms treating feelings and emotions; caution about expressing feelings; and moments of throwing caution to the wind.

My goal is to generate a taxonomy of Chaucer’s affective vocabulary and learn what passages or works might be fruitfully re-read in light of that taxonomy.  I am also interested Chaucer’s use of apophasis as a way of behaving “tactfully,” for example (and perhaps most famously) in Tr 3.1576: “I passe al that which chargeth nought to seye.”  Of course, this rhetorical device complicates the making of a word-list, since it involves significant silences as well as speech or writing.

My question: Should the paper focus tightly on just one work (Troilus would probably give me plenty of information) or on the Chaucer canon? Thanks!