Marlowe Chaucer Intertextuality, Point-Of-View, Metaphor,

Marlowe Chaucer

Intertextuality, point-of-view, metaphor, connotation: "The Franklin's Tale" of Geoffrey Chaucer and "Hero and Leander' of Christopher Marlowe)

Both "The Franklin's Tale" of the Middle English author Geoffrey Chaucer and the epic poem "Hero and Leander" of the Elizabethan author and dramatist Christopher Marlowe deploy the use of myths of the past to outline concerns of the present day authors of their respective tales. "The Franklin's Tale" deploys one of the oldest conventions of mythical literature, as old as the Greek myth of Atlanta and the Golden apples -- the tale of the unavailable maiden. Chaucer uses this theme of the 'impossible task' of the beautiful woman to discuss contemporary concerns about marriage and who deserves ruler ship in a marriage. Chaucer wrote during era where relations between the sexes were often fraught, because of the frequent absence of males from the sides of their wives -- thus creating a concern about adultery. "Hero and Leander" tells a more typical tale of romantic separation, as viewed through a Greek myth, to address concerns of what constitutes an appropriate marriage -- who should chose whom and whether young people should marry, rather than which partner ought to rule as in Chaucer. In Marlowe's day, romantic vs. chosen relationships were a common contemporary concern, as also evidenced in Shakespeare's later play of "Romeo and Juliet." By transposing these concerns into myth, both authors can discuss such concerns of the present with an archetypical resonance. This makes their concerns seem more significant, and also less controversial, as they take place 'way back when,' in the time of myth.

Chaucer's "Franklin's Tale" at first seems to reinforce a theme, also evident in "The Wife of Bath," of a strong woman whose beauty renders the male weaker in Samson-and-Delilah like fashion. But ultimately it reinforces a theme of mutuality in marriage, rather than a war between the sexes. The narrating Franklin first relates the 'back story' to his Brittany tale. He notes that when the knight Arviragus the knight proposed to the lovely lady Dorigen, the knight was so overjoyed that in his enthusiasm, he volunteered to his bride never to be jealous of other men, nor to try to rule her by his will. The knight tells his wife she only needs to pretend to the outside world that Arviragus is the master in the marriage, so he can save face in the eyes of his fellow knights -- both husband and wife will rule one another equally in reality.

But the real action of tale begins when Arviragus after he is married Dorigen and leaves the castle. While Arviragus' is absent, apparently upon his military duties although really to test his wife, a squire called Aurelius attempts to court Dorigen and asks her to transgress her wedding vows. Dorigen tries to be rid of Aurelius by demanding something apparently impossible. Dorigen bids Aurelius to remove the threatening rocks from the coast -- only then she shall grant him her love. But when Aurelius performs this apparently impossible task, Dorigen is faced with a terrible dilemma: either she can remain faithful to her husband and break her sworn promise to Aurelius or being unfaithful to her husband and her wedding vows and keep her promise to Aurelius. The common theme of courtly love, of the lower knight's double bind, of being loyal to his master or to the master's wife and his true beloved, is cast in a different bind of 'double duty' of the wife, in this case. This suggests that the idea of honor in marriage is not particular to any one gender, but is common to both -- and the idea of ruler ship in marriage is not something that can be solved for either sex in favor of the other, but must be shared between the two genders, in a common framework of decision-making and mutual struggle.

This theme of a lover's 'double bind,' as well as the requirement of lovers to do the impossible is also seen in Christopher Marlowe's dramatic narrative poem "Hero and Leander," which deploys an even older, Greek classical myth of two lovers separated by physical circumstances, that of the Hellespont, and overprotective parents. They are not separated by divided loyalties and obligations to one another after marriage but before marriage -- thus they are younger, more callow, and more idealistic than Chaucer's protagonists. Leander, Hero's beloved, swims the Hellespont for his love, thus solidifying the term of 'hero,' a word that still has intertexual resonance today -- however, heroism is often rendered in military rather than romantic terms. To be Heroic is to accomplish great deeds before marriage, to win a woman's hand, Marlowe's poem and deployment of these figures suggests. By dealing with a premarital tale and displacing conflict onto the heroine's parents and geography, romance is depicted in an idealistic fashion, and suggests that children, rather than their parents, should exercise choice in regards to selecting future partners.

The intertextual use in Chaucer is more thematic than verbal. Chaucer calls upon the myth of the unavailable maiden not to defend virginity, as the woman is already married. Nor does she wish to transgress -- rather, the idea of a woman attempts to get rid of him through the demanding of great tasks is combined with the convention of courtly love, where the common event of a military knight being called away from his wife and castle leaves her heart and body open to impingement by other men, usually of slightly lower orders such as squires, as in the case of "The Franklin's Tale." Like Marlowe deploys later with his use of Greek mythology, Chaucer deploys ancient myths and themes to illustrate 'real' truths, of the inevitable conflicts of divided loyalty between the genders bound by marital and feudal obligations. The man must leave the woman to fight for his lord, the squire must be loyal to his wife, and the wife must be loyal to her marital vows -- yet the wife's unintentional attempt to be courteous to the squire creates a terrible bind for her desire to be loyal to her husband and their attempt to create a mutually advantageous marriage.

Both authors use familiar tales and themes to wrestle with complicated questions. Marlowe's audience would have been familiar with the tale of the two lovers, Hero and Leander -- and even if Chaucer's audience were not familiar with the tales illustrated by the Franklin, the narrator tells the company before he begins the story that the ancient Bretons made up rhymed stories that they set to music. Via his prologue Chaucer uses the voice and figure of the Franklin gives the story an added symbolic weight and verisimilitude. The Franklin says he is uneducated but can tell one of his favorite traditional Breton tales to his fellow pilgrims because it is such a part of his life, upbringing and culture, just as, likewise, Marlowe's Elizabethan audience would have been familiar, from their own educations, of the tale of the two lovers, and Marlowe can use familiar Greek mythological figures and gods to defend Hero and Leander's actions and desire to chose their own romantic fates.

Hero and Leander's plight thus stands alone as a tale, but also in a larger mythological context and a larger context of Elizabethan social issues. In its larger thematic context of the rest of the Canterbury Tales, "The Franklin's Tale" can be seen as the culmination of the 'discussion' of marriage, from the mismatched May-December romance of "The Miller's Tale," to "The Wife of Bath's Tale," and finally "The Franklin's Tale" resolves the question of obligations between wife and husband, and lord and squire. Unlike the heightened drama of Marlowe's poem, "The Franklin's Tale" provides a more workable solution in resolving the "marriage question" proposed by the Wife of Bath in her tale, namely who should rule in a marriage, and how should men behave towards one another when they both desire the same woman? The dramatic use of myth and extreme events, such as moving rocks or swimming the Hellespont creates a sense of extremity that is often felt in marriage and romance, even if not always experienced in such heightened terms.

Of course, this reading must be tempered with the reminder of the fact that all of Chaucer's tales are framed, and Marlowe's poem makes use of an often-intrusive narrative poetic voice. In Chaucer, the personal narratives and prologues of the pilgrims give added resonance to the tales. The pilgrims act as "dramatis personae" as they relate mythical stories common to Chaucer's feudal culture. Often the pilgrim's persona ironically frames the meaning of the tale and the tales are given further meaning by the speaker's character and opinions.

The reader of the Canterbury Tales is really dealing with three voices in Chaucer -- for example, in "The Franklin's Tale," the reader is confronted with the voice and opinion of the humble, narrating and self-confessed illiterate Franklin, the tale's speakers of the wife, squire, and husband, the overriding voice of Chaucer the pilgrim and the even larger shaping voice of Chaucer the storyteller who creates the framing pilgrimage which solicits the tale in the first place. Thus, the notion of ruler ship in marriage is actually an orchestrated ideological shift in the hands of Chaucer the writer, as notions of marriage and change from the point-of-view of the miller, the Wife of Bath, to the Franklin.