Chaucer, Gower and the vox populi: Interpretation and the common profit in the 'Canterbury Tales' and 'Confessio Amantis'

During the final decades of the fourteenth century in England, as Lollards attempted to disseminate theological materials to the masses and rebellious peasants appropriated polemics for their own designs, the role of vernacular literature became a matter of paramount importance. This dissertation argues that Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales in part as a reaction to John Gower's conservative conception of vernacular literature in Confessio Amantis. I contend that Gower, who throughout his career aligned himself with the interests of society's empowered, attempted to create a vernacular work meant only for the elite. His text reaffirms the legitimacy of the social order by creating a fictional situation in which submission to an authority, Genius, makes one hale. Throughout the Confessio , Gower maintains that society will flourish only when people know their place. Gower's work, which relies on the exegetical tradition, attempts to preclude interpretive variety, for such variety, the poet realized, could prove dangerous to the status quo.; 1 propose that Chaucer, in contrast, anticipates that a diverse audience might access his work and, therefore, creates a text encouraging interpretive autonomy. He provides a reference guide in the form of the Parson's Tale, which relays doctrine in a straightforward manner and thus enables his readers to judge the Christian significance of the preceding tales for themselves, if they so desire. In creating the Parson's Tale, a text that disseminates theological knowledge to the populace, Chaucer aligns himself with the efforts of radical thinkers such as the Lollards and distances himself from conservatives like Gower. Chaucer further distances himself from Gower's endeavors through his critique of the exegetical tradition. In tales such as the Man of Law's and the Physician's, the poet exposes the political motivations underlying the use of exegesis by the empowered. In the Clerk's Tale, the poet demonstrates how a narrator hostile to the goals of the elite could take an exemplum meant to promote submission and transform it into a rallying cry for the masses. The Clerk's Tale demonstrates that Chaucer believed all tales were open to a variety of interpretations, even those told by the elite's apologists.