Pagan Philosophy in The Knight\'s Tale PDF

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Lecture notes on the Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer...

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Pagan Philosophy in The Knight’s Tale A clear example of pagan philosophy in the Knight’s Tale is the description of the sacrificial rite performed by Emelye in the temple of Diana in the early morning preceding the day of the tournament which is to settle her fate in marriage. The tournament itself (chivalry risking death for the sake of a lady) portrays the medievalism of northern Europe. (Refer lines 2110- 2116 and 22732294). Chaucer’s main aim in this passage is clearly to give the sense of a religion quite different from that of his own society. This can be seen in the accounts of the pagan ceremonies such as Arcite’s funeral at lines 2853 and in the magnificent descriptions of the temples of the pagan gods. The part played by pagan philosophy in the Knight’s Tale culminates to the speech made by Theseus which brings the action to the end. For Chaucer, a major advantage of the pagan setting was that it enabled him to enter into questions about the order of the world that would not have been appropriate within a Christian world-view. Many Christians, in all ages, have been troubled by doubts about life’s meaning and purpose. For this to be possible, the Christian answers to doubt which close off further question and speculation, had to be at least temporarily suspended. Chaucer had to be able to allow himself to imagine what it would really be like to live inside a world to which the Christian revelation had not been granted. Thus, the world of the Knight’s Tale is governed not by God but by the gods; and the gods are named in relation to the activities over which they preside – Theseus serving Diana after Mars when he turns from warfare to hunting (1682), and then swearing ‘’By myghty Mars’’ as he draws his sword and threatens death to peace-breakers (1906-9), or ‘’the wynged god Mercurie’’ (1385) appearing to Arcite with a message in a dream. They are the personifications of forces which are cosmic but also psychological; they are thought of operating through men as well as on them. The purpose of the descriptions of the 3 temples and the prayers in them in Part III, a section of the poem sometimes seen as merely decorative or pageant-like, is precisely to give poetic definitions to these forces. Mars and Venus are the aggressive and sexual instincts. In the depiction of Mars, especially, Chaucer evokes a propensity to destructive violence that pervades every aspect of life, in suicide, assassination, tyrannical rule, revolution, and all the horrifying “accidents” (only they are not accidents, but the expressions of a cosmic bent towards violence) of everyday life. (2018-26). Chaucer gained important help from the astrology of his time in giving his vision this comprehensiveness. In medieval astrology, the pagan gods survived in an active form as the planets that influenced every aspect of life. In Chaucer’s time (Christianity), planetary influences were not given as much consideration as divine providence and were not considered as so important as to negate human free will. On the other hand, in the pagan world of KT, there is no force above the planets. The pagan characters sometimes refer to Fortune as governing their lives, imagining her as a goddess. Thus the widowed ladies who stop Theseus on his way home after defeating the Amazons address him as ‘’lord, to whom Fortune hath yiven/ Victorie’’ (915-16). Sometimes they seem confused, as Arcite does when speaking of Palamon’s arbitrary release from prison at the request of Perotheus. First he explains, ‘’Wel hath Fortune yturned thee the dys!’’ (1238), but then he asks ‘’Allas, why pleynen folk so in commune/ On purveiaunce of God, or of Fortune?’’

But already in Part 1 the chief emphasis is placed on the planetary gods. It is under the banner of Mars that Theseus rides off to destroy Thebes, and when Palamon first sees Emelye he supposes her to be Venus in person. By the end of Part 1, the two young knights are in a situation which can be named ‘’request for love’’ typical of medieval courtly poetry – whose state is the worse, the one who is released from prison but banished from his lady, or the one who is near his lady but still in prison? (1347-8) ‘’yow lovers axe I now this question, Who hath the worse, Arcite or Palamon?’’ But in fact, the address to lovers is inappropriate as the question really concerns the ordering of the universe by the gods. Arcite laments man’s folly in supposing that he knows enough to be able to pray the gods to give him what will be for his good, while Palamon questions bitterly and at length whether the gods have any concern for men at all and whether there is any justice in human sufferings: (1303-24). The line of argument here is one that must of course have occurred to many Christians: by attributing it to a pagan, Chaucer is able to give it fuller and sharper expression than he could easily do it in a Christian context. The callousness that Palamon attributes to the gods is indeed shown by them as the action proceeds. It is Cupid (1623-4) that causes Palamon and Arcite each to desire exclusive possession of Emelye (who does not yet even know of their existence), and to be prepared to kill each other like wild animals in order to obtain her: (1655-9). Theseus finding them in bloody conflict, alludes to Cupid’s power over them (1785-6) – and then organizes the great tournament which is to settle finally which of them will marry Emelye. Arcite prays for victory in the temple of Mars and Palamon for the lady in the temple of Venus. Each god gives a favourable response, and this inevitably produces conflict in heaventhe two planets have predicted two incompatible futures. The benevolent Jupiter attempts to end their strife, but without success; and then, the aged Saturn, god of disasters, intervenes, promising that each prediction will come true. The solution Saturn finds to the dilemma is ingenuous but utterly callous towards the human beings. Arcite wins the tournament, but at his moment of triumph, Saturn sends a ‘’furie infernal’’ (2684), which causes his horse to stumble and throw him; and thus he dies in agony, leaving the way open for his rival, who has lost, nevertheless to gain Emelye. It should be added that, since the gods are working through as well as on human beings, human beings too a share in responsibility for what happens to them. Cupid is, in one sense, human desire; and when Arcite and Palamon pray, respectively, to Mars and Venus, they are also committing themselves to the cosmic forces that bring about violence and sex. But, in the world of the poem, human beings are plainly not masters of their fates: their individual lives and deaths are determined elsewhere – and determined by Saturn, the outermost of the planets, whose circle includes all the others: (2454-5) Saturn is the master of all types of misfortune, whatever their material causes, from ‘’the drenching in the see so wan’’ (2456) to plague. The fact that human beings are subjected to forces outside themselves is confirmed by the case of Emelye: The wish expressed in her prayer to Diana, is ‘’to ben a mayden al my lyf’’ (2305); but the answer she gets, accompanied by bloody drops running

from the firebrands on the altar (evidently a symbol of the loss of virginity that awaits her) is (2348-53). Emelye never cries out against her gods: as a virtuous pagan, she accepts their will. It is really the case in the world in which Emelye lives that she is unlikely to have any choice as to whether she is to marry; and, as a princess, she can expect no freedom of choice at all. That would surely have been true, for Chaucer, not just of a pagan princess but of a woman in any world he could imagine. Saturn’s solution to the heavenly dilemma leaves events on the human plane in a deeply unsatisfactory state: Arcite is cut down in his prime, and Emelye is destined to a marriage for which she has no wish. It remains for Theseus, the highest human power, to make what he can out of this wretched situation; and we have to look back over Theseus’ role in the earlier parts of the poem....