Descriptio in Chauncer's Troilus and Criseyde, The

Papers on Language and Literature, Spring 1999 by Gertz, SunHee Kim

Towchyng thi lettre, thou art wys ynough,"' Pandarus prods, "'I woot thow nylt it dygneliche endite, / As make it with thise argumentes tough; / Ne scryvenyssh or craftyly thow it write. . . [Regarding your letter-you are smart enough. I know you will not write it with haughty airs, showing off, or being argumentative; and nor should you write it like some secretary, or artfully] "' (II. 1023-25).1 Cajoling Troilus into crafting his first love letter to Criseyde in Geoffrey Chaucer's fourteenth century romance, Troilus and Criseyde, Pandarus advises that the hero go for the natural effect, complete with a "'[b]iblott[ing] "' of the letter "`with . . . teris ek a lite [Blot (ing) . . . with . . . tears a bit too] "' (II. 1027). Troilus does seem to avoid "argumentes tough." Opting instead to shape his efforts according to lovers' conventions, he uses "termes alle / That in swich cas thise loveres alle seche [all these other terms that in such cases these lovers all seek out]" (II. 1067-68) and does not neglect to add "salte teris [salt tears]" (II. 1086).

In thus guiding Troilus, Pandarus seems to be advising his pupil to choose the appropriate literary conventions of his time. His advice proves effective, for upon reading the letter, Criseyde "thoughte he koude good [thought he knew how to do such things properly]" (II. 1178), thereby implying that Pandarus does indeed know well the intended audience as well as the lovers' literary craft and its conventions. Not surprisingly, conventions are essential to what Maria Corti calls the literary system, which includes not only what is generally termed "the canonical," but also all that which allows for the comprehension, shaping, and communication of literature.2 Their critical role becomes evident in this scene, as Chaucer highlights the use of conventions to infer a writer's paradox: even in the communication of fresh insights or individually experienced emotions, the poet nonetheless addresses a readership already familiar with the literary system's conventions, which, consequently, he or she must learn to master. In this article, I wish to explore this paradox through Chaucer's manipulation of the medieval literary convention of the descriptio, a convention that occupied a respected place in the medieval poet's repertoire, as suggested by its use in practice as well as by various instructional sources.3

As Douglas Kelly has demonstrated, the descriptio has an ornamental function as topical amplification, which allows a narrative to focus on and systematically elaborate a point. As Kelly states, "[t]he commonplace elucidates and makes coherent originally obscure matiere" (Art 293); in other words, it creates narrative texture and credibility (Art 293-305). At the same time, its typically general portrait of a person from head to foot does little to enhance narrative action. Indeed, some medieval literati viewed the descriptio's preference for texture over action as a potential problem (Art 297-98) . Chaucer seems to belong to this group since he probes and plays with the form in his five-book love poem.

Actually, Chaucer cues his readers to his penchant for refashioning the traditional throughout this poem, as he allows his narrator to dismiss the conventional poetic subject of the Trojan War as no longer interesting (cf. I.141-47, V.1765-71).4 Instead of focusing on glory in battle, Chaucer sets his poem in civilian Troy right before its fall to the Greeks in order to treat how Troilus and Criseyde fall in love through the intermediary activity of her uncle Pandarus, only in the end to have the widow betray the Trojan hero. The plot itself is simple, and the poem's five books amplify comparatively static subjects: the lovers' emotions and Pandarus's delight in bringing the two together. This is important to note because concomitantly, Chaucer narrativizes the ordinarily static descriptio. What he ultimately suggests through this refashioning of convention is that prodding limits can unearth the wealth and ambiguities forgotten in conventional material and thereby rejuvenate the literary system.

THE CONVENTIONAL DESCRIPTIO AND LOVE

Medieval literati are well acquainted with the descriptio, which constitutes one of the formal exercises an aspiring writer must master, as attested to by the poetical treatises emerging in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As a formal literary device, it is categorized as a species of amplificatio. When describing a character, it conveys medieval standards of beauty or its absence (Ziolkowski), while associating appearance with the inner worth of the character ( Colby 3-60) . Thus, a beautiful and virtuous lady will regularly have blonde hair, a white forehead, beautiful eyes, startling white skin, and a slender body, as does Chretien de Troyes's Enide.5 Poets often describe ugly and less virtuous women by disfiguring such qualities, as is the case with Chaucer's Wife of Bath.*Sometimes, as in Marie de France's Lady in the lai, "Bisclavret," beauty hides evil,7while, as exemplified by an Old French life of Mary of Egypt, deformity can be a special sign of spirituality.'