Page 147 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes its “dogerel” parody of verse romance, a definite sense that Chaucer the character has definitely
run out of things to say. Note the number of times Chaucer has to ask the company to listen or to be
quiet (implying perhaps the jeers and responses of a less-than-impressed pilgrim audience) and
note too the way that details from the prologue seem to echo in the Tales: an effeminized, antisocial
Chaucer becomes an effeminized, entirely chaste Thopas, the Host’s comment that Chaucer looks
like he would find a “hare” becomes a forest with hares for wild beasts, an “elvish” looking-Chaucer
inspires the “elf-queen who is to be Thopas’ lover. To that, we might add, a storyteller Chaucer
reluctant to tell a tale (but pushed into the spotlight) becomes a knightly Thopas desperate to escape
knightly combat. The apparent purposeless of the narrative, packed with pointless details, might
well reflect a narrator who is making the tale up as he goes along.
There are several interpretable jokes hidden in the fabric of the tale. Chaucer is parodying his own
endless inventiveness, celebrating his own skill at creating varied voices, by presenting himself as
someone who cannot even come up with a single bearable story – and, silenced by his own characters,
the abortion of Chaucer’s tale actually points to a remark about the strength of his characterization.
Chaucer’s characters, it seems, are so well written that they give advice about tale-telling to their
writer. Sir Thopas, vanishing fit by fit as it does, also demonstrates Chaucer’s awareness of his own
elusiveness, the self-vanishing quality which enacts the invisibility of the writer’s point of view –
which we have already mentioned in several other tales. The Chaucer sent into the fiction to represent
the author is, we and he know all too well, a poor imitation of the real thing - but it is the nearest
thing to an omniscient author we are going to get.

Self Assessment

Short Answer Type Questions:
6. On what ancient form of literature is the tale of Melibee based?
7. Why does he approve of the tale of Melibee?
8. What kind of wife is prudence in the story of Melibee?
9. What does the Narrator call the divisions in the tale of Sir Thopas?
10. What is rhyme-doggerel?

16.3 Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee

16.3.1 The Tale of Melibee Text
There was once a young man named Melibee, mighty and rich, who had with his wife Prudence, a
daughter called Sophie. One day he took a walk into the fields, leaving his wife and daughter inside
his house, with the doors shut fast. Three of his old enemies saw it, and, setting ladders to the wall of
his house, entered, beating his wife, and giving his daughter mortal wounds in five places: “in hir
feet, in hire handes, in hir erys, in hir nose, and in hir mouth”.
When Melibee returned and saw what had happened, he was like a madman, tearing his clothes,
weeping and crying. Prudence, his wife, stopped his tears, and gave him some useful advice from
various authorities. Prudence eventually advised him to call a group of people to come to him, to
explain to them what had happened, and listen to their counsel.
As per his wife’s instructions, Melibee took counsel from “the grete congregacioun of folk”, and the
advice falls into two camps. The surgeons, physicians, lawyers, and the old urge caution, and a
considered reaction, but his neighbors and “yonge folk” urge war.
Melibee wants to wage war, and Prudence urges haste-there follows an argument about who should
prevail, and Prudence, eventually, triumphs. She tells Melibee that he should choose his counselors
carefully, and to set their advice against their–apparent and hidden - motives. Prudence then, at
length, goes through all of the advice that Melibee has been given and shows him that open war is
not a good option, for a variety of moral, ethical, and practical reasons.

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