Abstract
In the decades preceding his magnum opus, The Canterbury
Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer experimented with different forms of
poetry while serving as a diplomat in the court of Edward III.
Between 1368 and 1381, Chaucer wrote three poems in the style of
the medieval dream vision: Book of the Duchess, House of
Fame, and Parliament of Fowls. In each of the three
poems, the dreamer comes from a place of anxiety concerning love.
The dreamer then encounters a story from a well-known Roman author,
which provokes subconscious meditation on love when the dreamer
falls asleep. In this thesis, I connect the structural parallels
existing between the poems to courtly and classical traditions,
with the courtly perspective of fin amors reflecting
"earthly love" (or corporeal love) and the classical perspectives
of Stoicism and Neoplatonism reflecting "spiritual love" (or
incorporeal love). The dichotomy that emerges between corporeal
desire and incorporeal inclination appears irreconcilable in all
three of the poems. However, upon analyzing the bathetic endings of
the poems, only Parliament of Fowls approaches a remedy for
confronting the mysterious realm of love. As such, I argue that
Parliament of Fowls rests as the consummation of Chaucer's toils
with love-based anxiety in Book of the Duchess and House
of Fame, both of which preceded Parliament of Fowls in
their dates of completion. Ultimately, I show how Chaucer expresses
the futility of subscribing to established traditions and
philosophies when seeking guidance in the "maze" of varying
opinions on conduct in love.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1
Chapter 1: Unreliable Dreams and Moral Meditation
Section 1: The Gates of Horn and
Ivory--------------------------------------------------------9
Section 2: Macrobius, Hugh of St. Victor, and Chaucer's Dream
Vision Structure-----------11
Section 2a: Earthly
Love-------------------------------------------------------------------------12
Section 2b: Reading and Moralizing in the Realm of the
Subconscious-----------------------16
Chapter 2: Traditions Behind Earthly Love and Heavenly
Love
Section 1: Fin Amors of Andreas Capellanus and "comun profit"
of Africanus---------------27
Section 1a: Fin Amors and Communal Profit in Book of the
Duchess and House of Fame--32
Section 2: Apatheia versus Passio from a Structuralist
Standpoint--------------------------40
Chapter 3: The Music of the Spheres
Section 1: The "Fideistic Transcendence of
Doubt"--------------------------------------------47
Section 2: Bathos in Book of the Duchess and House of
Fame-------------------------------52
Section 3: Passio, Augustine's Three Levels of Music, and
Hugh's Compromise-------------57
Section 4: Music and Bathos in Parliament of
Fowls-------------------------------------------61
Conclusion----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------64
Bibliography--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------66
About this Honors Thesis
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