Chaucer’s Love Visions
In each work, Chaucer exhibits a somewhat cynical view of what the gods offer to man in terms of fortune. The replication of the grieving lover stories in The Book of the Duchess multiplies the skepticism of Chaucer’s narrator toward love by two. The narrator begins the poem vexed by unrequited love, and continues this theme within the frame story of his dream. Even though the poem gives a nod to the principles of courtly love, it can be argued that the poem is in opposition to the premise of idealism embodied by traditional rules of courtly love.
Both the narrator and the Black Knight adhere to the concept that a lover “…sleeps very little.” (Halsall 1). The narrator laments his insomnia in the beginning lines of the poem, proclaiming “I cannot sleep: a heavy gloom/So threatens me with thoughts of doom./This lack of sleep and sluggishness/Have so destroyed my liveliness/That I have lost all energy.” (23-7) Likewise, the Black Knight remarks that “[his] sleep is waking…”4 (611). Each character’s sleeplessness is in accordance with the notion of sleeplessness associated with deep love. However, once the poem becomes the narrator’s dream, his treatment of the Black Knight’s suffering reveals a desire to approach love more practically. The dreamer’s attempt to talk the Black Knight out of taking his own life have an almost condescending tone, as he recounts stories of others, such as Dido, who have foolishly died for lost loves. (731-4) Some critics, such as Gwen M. Vickery, argue that this is Chaucer’s attempt to point out the irrationality of giving oneself wholly to the idea of courtly love. Vickery explains this notion, claiming that “Ideal and supreme love cannot, and must not, be maintained in the face of earthly reason. The result of such a foolish attempt would be death, and this consequence of idealism must be avoided. Realistic considerations and the acknowledgment of limitations are emphasized instead .”(Vickery 4)
In The House of Fame, however, the narrator’s view of the Dido myth shifts somewhat. He gives considerable time to recounting the story with emphasis on Dido’s betrayal and sorrow. The juxtaposition of these two views – Dido as a fool and as a simple victim of fateful misfortune – points to the idea that suffering is inevitably a product of love.
Neither narrator offers evidence that the feeling of love is not bestowed on man by the gods, or at least by some force beyond human reason. It follows that Chaucer’s view of the emotional realm, and the seemingly awful impacts of human nature, would warrant his desire to explain how these fates are decided. As such, both poems present a quest for such an explanation of the natural concepts of love and fate. Each poem also utilizes the idea of literature as a tool for acquiring knowledge of these concepts. In The Book of the Duchess, “the dream-vision…[is] fueled by the reading material the narrator claims to have had before him when he fell asleep.” (Amtower 1) It seems as though the dreamer is looking to literature for either solace or reason when his dream takes flight. As the dream progresses, the narrator is forced to “read” another person in the same love dilemma as he is – possibly a way to separate himself from his own sorrow in order to find some truth. However, the only realization the dreamer seems to end up with is that love brings with it suffering. This is evidenced by the dreamer’s journey through the garden (408-442), which exists as a symbol of Nature’s overwhelming sensations. However, all of this plentitude leads him only to the grieving Black Knight, where he finds no reason in a lover’s pain. The narrator ends the poem with “This was my dream; now it is done” (1334), as if to say that he has not experienced any glaring revelation through his dream.
Similarly, the narrator in The House of Fame is so well-read that he can has trouble keeping himself on the proper storytelling track for all of the literary figures he alludes to. Some critics assert that the pervasiveness of literature in the poem is indicative of the narrator’s struggle to process all that he has read in order to understand the nature of things such as love and human fate. (Amtower 2) The dialogue of the eagle, who explains to the dreamer the impact of sounds and where they go, sets the tone for the purpose of Geoffrey’s journey and hints at the question of how language and discourse may or may not affect one’s fate. Yet again, though, Geoffrey’s desire to understand is left unsatisfied when he visits the House of Fame only to find that Fame herself randomly decides who will be in her good graces. Though the reader is already disappointed by such a revelation at this point, the poem’s abrupt, unfinished ending heightens this sense of frustration. The reader is left without any explanation of who the “man of great authority” (2157) is, and without any clue as to what has, or will be, revealed to the dreamer. Thus, this quest for knowledge is also fruitless, and the mysteries of love, fame, and fortune unrevealed.
Clearly, both The Book of the Duchess and The House of Fame deal with love in a cynical way, while also revealing the narrator’s desire to know how natural concepts like love and fame work. The two works together complement one another in support of Chaucer’s disparaging view of love. Both also paint a portrait of the dreamer as a seeker of understanding. These shared themes are true to the definition of a “love vision” – the dream as a way of dealing with one’s interpretation of human emotion and its byproducts. Unfortunately for Chaucer, these dreams are at best inconclusive. Still, each poem is effectively used as a vehicle for processing his own feelings and questions about the concept of love.
