Chaucer by David Aers (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER reasonably be expected, with the most obviously significant groupings of articles producing discrete (Malorian) blocks, as well as a kind of"interlace" of thematic connection between widely separated pieces. I think that Cedric Pickford-whose own impressive range of interests and achieve­ ments are recalled in the bibliography and on pp. 149-50-would have been pleased with it. MALDWYN MillS University College, Aberystwyth DAVID AERS. Chaucer. HarvesterNew Readings. AtlanticHighlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1986. Pp. xi, 121. $17.50. David Aers's Chaucer is intended as a concise critical introduction to Chaucer's poetry. After brief introductory remarks in which Aers explains some of his assumptions about Chaucer and the late Middle Ages, Aers discusses in his three main chapters Chaucer's representations of society, religion, and marriage and sexual relations, the topics that Aers considers of major importance to both Chaucer and Chaucer's modern readers. Although Troilus and Criseyde is included in the final chapter and other poems are briefly taken up elsewhere, the book emphasizes The Canter­ bury Tales. Much ofwhat Aers writes about Chaucer, especially his remarks on the commercial basis for medieval marriages and the relations between the sexes, the domination in medieval society of men over women, and Chaucer's sympathy for women, is of value in understanding Chaucer's work. His discussions ofthe ascetic merchant and the worldly monk ofThe Shipman's Tale (pp. 20-24) and the serious moral problems raised by The Franklin's Tale (pp. 85-92) are particularly worth reading. But much of what Aers writes will be questionable to many ofthose in whatAerscallsthe "Anglo-Americancommunityof'medievalists' " (p. 29). Aers believes, forexample, that the narrator's apparentagreementwith the Monk's views in The General Prologue ("I seyde his opinion was good") should be seen not as "simplesarcasm"but as anindication that traditional ideas about appropriate behavior for a monk were anachronistic (pp. 17-19); thus, if I understand him correctly, Aers believes that Chaucer's portrait of the Monk presents an acceptance of what monasticism had become in the fourteenth century. This is roughly equivalent to suggesting 114 REVIEWS that in the morality play Mankind one is not to see criticism in the ponraits of characters such as Nought, New-Guise, and Nowadays simply because they represent behavior typical of members of contemporary society. Aers also believes that Chaucer presents in Theseus a criticism ofsecular rule that is based on "wars of imperialist expansion which have an explicit economic motive" (p. 25). Theseus is "a worshipper ofMars" (he goes into battle with Mars on his battle standard), and Aers finds the horrors depicted in the description of the temple of Mars applicable to Theseus's conduct in war. However, Aers's unqualified condemnation ofTheseus and medieval warfare overlooks the commonly accepted medieval notion that war, though violent and cruel, was at times necessary and justifiable; and Theseus's wars against the Amazons, in which he overthrew the unnatural (at least according to medieval thought) rule ofwomen, and the war against Creon, in which he overcame a tyrant, would seem to be wars ofthis sort. The attempt, in fact, to present both just and unjust wars in The Knight's Tale is consistent with the Knight's attempt in the tale to show both positive and negative sides of life. In his comments about specific points ofChristian doctrine about which Chaucer appears to have had little interest (p. 58), Aers mentions Chaucer's lack of concern for "specifically Christian problems of...free will, God's foreknowledge and predestination." Chaucer's presentation of topics such as free will and predestination, however, in works ranging from Troz"lus and Criseyde and The Knz"ght's Tale to The Nun's Priest's Tale would certainly have been acceptable to contemporary Christians even if much of the thought is ultimately derived from pagan antiquity. Aers also finds in Chaucer's work "absence ofany specifications for reform ofthe Church." Yet Chaucer's portraits of most of those associated with the church in The General Prologue (including the monk) offer both implicit and explicit suggestions for reform. There are other points that will seem strange to many: Like...