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Structure and Meaning in the Parlement of Foules
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The Parlement of foules is a poem in three parts: the prelude before the dream, the scene in the garden of love, and the debate among the birds. Each part differs from the others in its sources, content, mode of treatment, and tone. Because of these differences many-critics have argued that the poem lacks unity. Such arguments would be more convincing if Chaucer seemed unaware of the differences and if the three parts of the poem did not, in some way, serve a common purpose. It is probable, however, that Chaucer created these differences deliberately, for he appears to have worked to heighten and exploit them. A conscious artistic purpose is behind the poem's variety. Moreover, this variety is the agent of the poem's unity; it both contains and creates the poem's ultimate meaning. To make this clear, we shall look first at some of the ways in which Chaucer sharpened the distinctions between the three parts. And then we shall consider the ways in which the parts are unified and the purpose which is served by the tripartite organization.
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References
1 There is a good bibliography of the literature on the Parlement of Foules in the notes to R. M. Lumiansky, “Chaucer's Parlement of Foules: A Philosophical Interpretation,” RES, xxiv (1948), 81–89. Since the publication of Lumiansky's article the following studies have appeared: Bertrand H. Branson, “The Parlement of Foules Revisited,” ELH, xv (1948), 247–260; Gardiner Stillwell, “Unity and Comedy in the Parlement of Foules,” JEGP, XLIX (1950), 470–495, and “Chaucer's Eagles and Their Choice on February 14,” JEGP, liii (1954), 546–561; and Charles A. Owen, Jr., “The Role of the Narrator in the ‘Parlement of Foules’,” CE, xiv (1953), 264–269. Some of the critics listed by Lumiansky, Lumiansky himself, and Bronson, Stillwell, and Owen interpret the poem as a unified work of art. Also Charles O. McDonald, “An Interpretation of Chaucer's Parlement of Foules,” Speculum, xxx (1955), 444–457.
2 Full information about the sources is provided in the explanatory notes to the poem in The Complete Works of Chaucer, ed. Fred N. Robinson (Cambridge, Mass., 1933). All quotations are from this ed. The poem uses a variety of materials (cf. John Livingston Lowes's skillful listing of the sources in Geoffrey Chaucer, Oxford, 1949, pp. 117–122). Yet we would be essentially correct in thinking of the prelude as the product of one source, the Somnium Scipionis; the garden scene as the product of another, the Roman de la Rose and the Teseide; and the parliament scene as the product of a third, the De Planctu Naturae.
3 Cf. J. S. P. Tatlock, The Mind and Art of Chaucer (Syracuse, 1950), p. 66: “the classic narrative is used as introduction not because of any bearing on the contents of the rest of the poem but for its own splendor, also perhaps to lend dignity.” Wolfgang Clemen, Der junge Chaucer, Kölner Anglistische Arbeiten (Bochum-Langendreer, 1938), pp. 168–172, argues, on the basis of medieval literary convention, that the Somnium Scipionis is used to give the poem authority, to provide lore skillfully mtermingled with the lust of the poem, and to introduce a serious contrasting color before the charming play begins. But, he asserts (p. 170), it cannot be proved that the Christian thought of the Somnium stands in any closer relationship to the main part of the poem. Clemen's study of the poem (pp. 161–205) is very illuminating.
4 Bertrand H. Bronson, “In Appreciation of Chaucer's Parlement of Foules,” Univ. of Calif. Pubs, in Eng., iii, v (1935), 199. This is unquestionably the most important interpretive study of the poem. My own analysis of the Parlement is essentially in agreement with that of Bronson, with that of Stillwell in his 1950 article, and with the analysis of Charles Owen (see n. 1).
5 This would explain in part why Africanus disappears from the dream almost as soon as he appears. He contributes to the “surprise” at this point, makes a comic speech about Chaucer's failure as a lover, and never is heard from again. He has served his purpose.
6 A quick summary will reveal the outlines of this pattern of surprise: The opening remarks about love lead us to expect that the book Chaucer has been reading is to be a book of love, but it is a book of moral doctrine. The moral book and the comments on dream psychology arouse the expectation that the dream will be moral matter of some kind, but instead it is a love vision. The garden, the goddess Nature, the lovely formel, and the first tercel's speech suggest a courtly love situation or a demande d'amours; instead what develops is the raucous and chaotic birds' parliament.
7 Some of these contrasts have been observed previously. See esp. Bronson, “In Appreciation,” pp. 198–199.
8 It is relevant to the argument here that Chaucer made the elaborate garden in the Teseide even more elaborate. Cf. Robinson's notes on 11.176–294.
9 Lines 60–64 and 190–191, 197–203. There is also a “music” passage in the parliament scene: the cacophonous outcry after the three tercels have spoken: ll.491–500.
10 Cf. Clemen, Der junge Chaucer, pp. 177, 181–182.
11 Lines 330–364. Notice the descriptions of the goshawk, the merlin, the swallow, and the drake.
12 Gardiner Stillwell, in “Chaucer's Eagles and Their Choice on February 14,” JEGP, liii (1954), 546–561, argues that the first tercel's speech violates the canons of courtly love etiquette because he says “I choose” the formel and “she ought to be mine through her mercy.” But his evidence that these statements do violate the etiquette is not very convincing. The speech as a whole seems the very pattern of a courtly love address. The purposes of comedy are served by the speech, not because it is comic in itself, but because it leads the audience to expect a typical courtly love situation, and so the events that follow the speech have the effect of comic surprise.
13 Cf. Edith Rickert, “A New Interpretation of The Parlement of Foules,” MP, xviii (1920), 3–4.
14 Each attitude or philosophy is presented, in fact, as a kind of religion, with a concept of grace and a scheme of reward and punishment. (The punishment is described by Africanus in 11.78–81 and by the alternate inscription over the gate to the garden, 11.134–140. It is less explicit in the parliament scene, though perhaps it is implied in the word “lese” in l.402: “And, as youre hap is, shul ye wynne or lese.”)
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