The Afterlife of Chaucer
Session Organizer: Tom Shippey
Saint Louis University
Department of English, 3800 Lindell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108
shippey@slu.edu

Subtlety in a Club: The Dynamic and Ambiguous Tale of Gamelyn and Why Chaucer Surely Liked It

Placing the Tale of Gamelyn within the context of The Canterbury Tales has consumed a significant quantity of energy, thought and paper among scholars. Where Chaucer might have intended the tale to be placed, and who might have spoken it, are questions that have drawn much conjecture. In this paper I will discuss not so much the where of placement, but the why. The dynamic nature of Gamelyn himself and the ambiguous themes and genre of the tale echo Chaucer's own penchant for playing both sides of the fence. The hero is violent and cruel, though he is certainly the victim of wicked deeds. Although it is a tale about the gentry, Gamelyn can be read as a criticism of bourgeoisie attitudes. And although Gamelyn is an outlaw, the tale is about the restoration of justice. While a robust and violent tale, Gamelyn boasts a rather conservative resolution wherein outlawry and violence become servants of order and law. In the end, it is not surprising that Chaucer might have intended to place the Tale of Gamelyn within The Canterbury Tales, for it is the very sort of story that can be appreciated in different ways by different audiences.

A. Keith Kelly
Saint Louis University
kellyak@slu.edu

The Role of the Plowman’s Tale in Early Modern Chaucer Reception

This paper will examine the transference of Chaucer’s image from that of a brilliant court poet to a political and religious figure through William Thynne’s inclusion, in 1532, of the apocryphal medieval poem the Plowman’s Tale into the framing canon of Chaucer’s works and the continuation of this tradition by Thomas Speght in the early seventeenth century (1602). I will show that, at the same time the laureate images of Chaucer displayed in early modern printed editions of his works became more sophisticated and complex, the concomitant positioning of the Plowman’s Tale constituted a move to construct a Chaucer that was both laureate and proto-Protestant. Through the editorial positioning of authentic and apocryphal tales the sixteenth century editors of Chaucer began to shape him as an early hero of the Reformation. By drawing on introductory and bibliographical materials contained in the early print editions of Chaucer’s works as well as manuscript and early print materials, I will present a historical picture of a translation of Chaucer as a laureate and religious figure that significantly influenced his place in the canon of literature.

Paul J. Patterson
University of Notre Dame
patterson.30@nd.edu

Apocryphal Auctoritee: Medievalism and The Canterbury Tales

Dryden's reverence for Chaucer as "the father of English Poetry" is probably the most famous articulation of his literary canonization, yet Spenser's panegyric description of Chaucer as "the pure well of English undefiled" is far more apt an homage to Chaucerian decorum. Spenser's efforts at imitating Chaucer's use of language are, of course, derivative of the work of fifteenth-century authors—such as John Lydgate, Thomas Hoccleve, and the anonymous authors of The Tale of Beryn and the Plowman's Tale—of several so-called apocryphal Canterbury Tales. These narratives attest the conceptual auctoritee of The Canterbury Tales as much as they establish Chaucer's status as auctor in a manner fitting his reliance upon classical and continental auctors. While The Canterbury Tales remain the cornerstone of the house of Chaucer's fame, but not since the fifteenth-century has the auctoritee of that narrative framework been applied so sensitively as in the recent novels of Paul Doherty. By setting his murder-mysteries and macabre stories in the mouths of Canterbury Pilgrims, Doherty valorizes the strain of medievalism popularized by the likes of Ellis Peters and revives the creative exploration of closure in the Tales. Moreover, Doherty does so very much in the tradition of the authors of the apocryphal Canterbury Tales of the fifteenth-century.

Alexander Vaughan Ames
Saint Louis University
amesav@slu.edu