- Desire in the Canterbury Tales by Elizabeth Scala
Desire in the Canterbury Tales is part of the Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture Series edited by Ethan Knapp. The book is divided into 6 sections covering topics such as Mobility and Contestation; Desire, Knowledge, and the Ruse of Satisfaction in the Knight’s Tale; Misreading Like [End Page 336] the Reeve; Symptoms of Desire in Chaucer’s Wives and Clerks; Disfigurements of Desire in Chaucer’s Religious Tales; and Reading and Misreading Chaucer.
Elizabeth Scala argues that desire is structurally significant in the way the tales relate to each other. The act of misreading and the idea of desire are exposed as the twin driving forces of Chaucer’s tales. The tales are generated as misreadings and misrecognitions of each other. The author argues that desire is central to the Canterbury Tales and that misrecognition acts as an effect of this central desire.
Most of the stories have desire at their heart. In the Wife of Bath, a knight searches for “What thing is it that women most desiren” (3.905). In the Knight’s Tale, we are presented with “What is this world? What asketh men to have?” (1.2777). The Man of Law’s trial of constancy, the Physician’s exem-plum, and the Second’s Nun’s hagiography, although on the surface are seemingly embracing religious themes, are really tales of desire, a desire that is both physical and erotic and which leads to the political and social discourse we are presented with. Desire is also seen in the economic dominance stories of the Summoner’s, the Friar’s, and the Pardoner’s accounts.
Scala posits that the Canterbury Tales’ theme of Desire is structurally significant. She argues that this Desire isn’t just an incidental byproduct of the pilgrims’ tales, or a byproduct of differing social locations. Misrecognition and misreading abound. The subject and the subject’s desire are located where the subject ends up misrecognizing himself and as a result misreads his surroundings. This also means that there is no satisfaction coming his way in this world of misreadings. The pilgrims misread their tales and this affects how their own stories are interpreted.
The pilgrims’ readings interweave; sometimes one story is reflected in another. Chances at multiple misreadings are even more prevalent in this scenario. Scala points out that another word for this misrecognition is sociality: “as one fabricates, fantasizes, and hazards a relationship to another and to the big Other: the social world in its entirety that fixes the subject with its laws.” She goes on to mention that this sociality is part of the subject, that comes after the social, and is a product of its own rules. The subject is Other to itself, Other to what is known.
Scala also examines the differences between nature and pilgrimage. The stringent ascetic demands of the religious view don’t sit too well with the springtime libidinal “vertu,” the earth that produces grass and flowers and leaves at this less then spiritual time of year. Scala mentions the text of De Planetu Natural as the more spiritual and makes a comparison with the tales. Natural desire is being channeled towards the correct idea in the form of undertaking a pilgrimage. But pilgrimage poses its own special problems, namely those of the professional pilgrims or “palmeres,” who embark on voyages for their own personal gain. They enjoyed not only monetary benefits but also the joy of traveling to faraway places. Corruption inevitably follows, and this fact is alluded to in the setting opening. Yet, Chaucer allows a wide breath of interpretation in this opening, room enough for all the pilgrims and their stories, and makes a transition to the more mundane and quotidian nature of the poem. [End Page 337]
Desire has a historical dimension, and Scala mentions Robert Edwards’ ideas on desire here. Edwards believes in “its self-interest, intensity, and under-current,” realizing that writing about sexuality poses unique problems. Scala mentions Pierre Payer here as...
