“As Olde Stories Tellen Us”: Chivalry, Violence, and Geoffrey Chaucer's Critical Perspective in The Knight's Tale

Summary

When Chaucer (c.1343–1400) writes in the Poem “Truth” “Her is non hoom, her nis but wildernesse: / Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!” he is calling for readers to avoid the animalistic distractions and excesses of the secular realm, and by doing so, directs their attention and spiritual movement heavenward, toward that which is eternal. The Boethian theme of this poem is pervasive within Chaucer's writing, as seen in the varying admonitory reactions his narrators provide: the defiance against “This wrecched worldes transmutacioun” in poems such as “Fortune,” “lak of Stedfastnesse,” and “The Former Age”; the criticism of worldly reputation the narrators voice in The House of Fame; and the caustic commentary they reveal through Troilus's laughter at the temporal world in the final stanzas of Troilus and Criseyde.

Chaucer's use and treatment of antiquity in The Knight's Tale provides fertile ground for the application of Boethian themes to the genre of the romance because Greco-Roman deities (principally Mars and Venus) serve a double meaning for the late-medieval audience. These deities function as characters who follow their own agendas in the narrative; on the other hand, Mars and Venus are symbolic of planets that, through their influence, affect human psychology in clear and identifiable ways through their connection with humoral philosophy. Planetary influence on personality carries a connotation of excess because each planet (and its influence) is linked to a psychological complexion based on a bodily humor, and each humor exists in harmony only when balanced against the other temperaments.