Chaucerian Fiction by Robert B. Burlin (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER ROBERT B.BURLIN, Chaucerian Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977. Pp. x, 292. $14.50. Burlin describes Chaucerian Fiction as a "reading" of the poet's major fictions.His goal is to place his interpretation in "the larger perspective ofChaucer's own view of himself as a maker of poetic fictions" (vii).He begins with a chapter on the philosophical background of Chaucer's time, in which he discusses the antinomy of "experience and authority," an opposition he uses as the key to Chaucer's poetic development.His argument is divided into three sections. The first, "Poetic Fictions," examines the Prologue to The Legend ofGood Women, The House ofFame, and The Book ofthe Duchess. By "Poetic Fictions" Burlin means poems in which "Chaucer speculates ...on the poet's relation to his audience, on the value ...ofpoeticactivity, on the sources ofitsaffekt, on its validity as a means of apprehending anything that approximates an authentic estimate of the human condition" (ix). The second section, "Philo­ sophical Fictions," contains chapters on The Parlement of Foules, The Knight's Tale, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Clerk's Tale. "Philosophic fictions" concentrate on the epistemological aspects of literary activity. Burlin theorizes that these poems, all of which seem highly original despite their well-known sources, reflect Chaucer's having arrived "at a sufficiently theoretical sense ofthe uses offiction that he might test it on the fiction of others" (p. 81). The third section, "Psychological Fic­ tions," concentrates on The Canterbury Tales as fictions which reckon with the unspoken motives of telling a tale as well as the teller's pronounced intentions.A briefconclusion, "The Uses ofFiction," wraps up Burlin's argument. My initial response to the book was somewhat negative.Its approach seemed "trendy," a medieval application ofthe Yale course on "Man and his Fictions. " The analyses, though suave, seemed intellectuallycautious (perhaps a bit precious), without penetrating with much depth the philosophical or psychological issues of Chaucer's poetry. The second time through I gained a higher regard for the book. Burlin's literary observations are often concise and well-pointed, especially in the inter­ face chapters between sections.He has a supple mind and often general­ izes with candid precision. Throughout the book his discussions of Chaucer's ability to transform his sources are adept; so too his considera­ tions ofthe elements ofChaucer's style.His own style enjoys a mannerly 1 54 REVIEWS elegance which is, for the most part, pleasing, only rarely becoming overwrought, calling attention to itself instead of its content. The introductory chapter provides a balanced account of the main currents of intellectual thought in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu­ ries, placing about the right emphasis on empiricism and the crisis regarding verifiable authority. I was put off, however, by his use of Leff 's label "the age of scepticism," from Medieval Thought from St. Augustine to Ockham (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1958), a book Burlin uses repeatedly as a source for his chapter. Apparently he is unaware of the new Leff in William ofOckham (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975), where Leffrevises his views on the fourteenth century quite radically. In fact, Burlin's summary seems oblivious to most of the important work over the past fifteen years on fourteenth century philoso­ phy. His discussion of Roger Bacon on experience and authority is fresh and useful, however. But Burlin is not, in fact, much interested in historical perspective or philosophy. Rather, he concentrates on what he takes to be poetic process. Part I views the dream visions as occasional pieces in which the poet directs attention "to the self consciousness of the maker grappling with his own audacity" (p. 31). One must admire the earnestness with which Burlin argues on behalfofChaucer's "responsiveness and intellec­ tual responsibility to his chosen art" (p. 32). Repeatedly he emphasizes Chaucer's open, "amateur" attitude, which, partly because of its non­ professional commitment to traditional formulas ofpoetry, develops into "a new poetic voice" out ofthe poet's "intellectual imagination" (p. 78) and "the tensions ofpoetic consciousness." But Burlin does not carry his reader very far into that "intellectual imagination." Seldom does he engage in the language ofChaucer's speculation...