Notes to Chapter 10

1. Cf. Kenner 1978:14: "For nothing is as dependent as Objectivity on language and the rituals of language, Objectivity which had promised to evade rhetoric and make the facts effect their own declaration." Part of what is at issue here is the fundamental datum of the positionality of language and hence of the self also; cf. Lacan (trans. Sheridan) 1977:84-86.

2. Cf. Scholes and Kellogg 1966:55; Wetherbee 1972:243.

3. Cf. Leicester 1980:220; Mann 1973:197.

4. Cf. Carton 1979:47-61; Mann 1973:7; Mehl 1974:173-89.

5. For a discussion of this pun and its usefulness for interpreting Chaucer, see Shoaf 1977:81.

6. Davis 1979:65; for the meaning "fiction," see FrP D 1279.

7. On the Augustinian notion "commoda privata," see O'Donovan 1980:102-104. I should take this opportunity to anticipate a probable objection to my use of the word true /"true." It should be obvious by now that part of my concern is to quarrel with both positivism and phenomenology precisely in regard to their positions on verification or truth. The former's position I reject basically for the same reasons as Kenner puts forth in The Counterfeiters, "The Gulliver Game": "positive" verification, as of the adequation of one word to one fact, ultimately dehumanizes because in it "the thing that is not can have no saying" (1968:139). The latter's position I reject because it seems to me still bound to the Cartesian cogito in the measure to which it privileges perception and the ego--see Rorty 1979:8-12; Heidegger (trans. Macquarrie and Robinson) 1962:122-35. Each of these positions, in its own way and for its own reasons, presupposes science as the standard for the measurement of truth (verification). My own position presupposes, on the contrary, the standard of sapience (wisdom), which measures truth for fidelity or loyalty to Being (this position is not Coleridgean: I do not privilege the Imagination; rather Memory is the mode of sapience as the measure of truth's fidelity to Being). To the various sciences of man invented (I agree with Foucault) in the eighteenth century, I would oppose poetry, here inclusive of theology and philosophy, as the sapience of man. I will expand on my position at length in the Epilogue. Here let me note only that true or designing fiction is bad fiction precisely because it is so clearly and immediately verifiable--i.e., its attack on someone or something can be verified. "True" or designed fiction, on the other hand, is not verifiable; it is rather contemplatable and dialecticalogical. {266/267}

8. On the epithet "hende," see Donaldson 1972:17-20.

9. The basic meaning of the word is "requite" or "pay" or "reward"; see Davis 1979: 116; OED Q:71-72.

10. For ethics in the category of positive justice, see Hugh of St. Victor Didascalicon 3.2 (trans. Taylor 1961:84, 209 n. 15); Hugh's position is common. It will be helpful to recall also ST 2a. 2ae. 58, 11, 3 (chap. 1 above), where Thomas writes (emphasis added):

. . . that justice is first of all and more commonly exercised in voluntary interchanges of things, such as buying and selling, where the expressions `loss' and `gain' are properly employed; and yet they are transferred to all other matters of justice. The same applies to the rendering to each one of what is his own.
Because justice is so obvious in commerce, commerce is obviously a relevant sphere of discourse for a meditation on justice--such as The Canterbury Tales. Consult, further, de Roover 1971: 18-19.

11. Here I owe a pervasive debt to Derrida: the twin notions of "la différance" and "la différence" have played a large role in my thinking on the structure of The Canterbury Tales.

12. Theseus fails to control his household most obviously by failing to contain and define the power of love; for all his pronouncements, love still sets his house in disorder. Carpenter John obviously fails to control his household by having married someone far too young for him and by having subsequently provided her "likerous yë" someone to look upon. Symkyn in The Reeve's Tale fails to control his household not only by being unable to discipline his daughter but also by founding his prosperity upon theft. Finally, The Cook's Tale fragment: here perhaps it is enough to say that the word "household" hardly even applies.

13. For these pairings I am indebted to Patterson 1978:375-76.

14. The oikonomia of salvation, of redemption, judgment, etc., is a crucial concept in Christianity and especially in the Pauline Epistles; see, e.g., Eph. 1.10, 3.9. Consult, further, Saint John Chrysostom Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews 3.2, (PG 63:29), 4.6 (PG 63:41), 5.2 (PG 63:47); trans. Keble 1975:376, 385, 389.

15. John Balbus Catholicon (1460; reprint 1971), s.v.; Isidore Etymologiae 2.24.4.

16. Chaucer's contemporaries Langland and Gower shared this desire; see, e.g., Piers Plowman B 19.182; Confessio Amantis 2.2377.

17. The medieval "distinctio" is a collection of definitions or "distinctions" of biblical words or images; it originated as a preacher's tool, to facilitate the composition of sermons; we are only beginning to appreciate its importance for later medieval poetry. Two recent studies provide valuable introductions: {267/268} Brinkmann 1980:78-83; and Rouse and Rouse 1979:7-11.

18. Howard, 1976:150-52, has suggested that The Genera l Prologue to The Canterbury Tales might profitably be understood as an artificial memory system--see the remarkable study of such systems by Yates 1966:63-134. He notes that the likeliest structure would be: Knight: Squire, Yeoman, Prioress, Monk, Friar, Merchant; Clerk: Man of Law, Franklin, Guildsmen, Shipman, Physician, Wife; Parson and Plowman: Miller, Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, Pardoner, Host. In this system Knight, Clerk, Parson, and Plowman are obviously ideal types. Allen and Moritz 1981:89-91 have extended this suggestion by realizing that the ideal types are those that are, those that know, and those that do. These types, in turn, they note, are convenient to the obvious "distinctio" of Man as soul, mind, and body. In light of this "distinctio," it is possible to say that the content of The Canterbury Tales is Man: the pilgrims "add up" to Man--"These people are a normative array, sufficient for the definition of the category `man'" (p. 90).