by Geoffrey Chaucer
(ca. 1390)
CHAUCER’s Clerk of Oxford, a theology student, tells one of the most controversial and disturbing of the CANTERBURY TALES. Told partly in response to the WIFE OF BATH’s assertion that it is impossible for a cleric to speak well of women, the Clerk’s Tale recounts the story of Patient Griselda, a saintlike wife who endures her husband’s cruelty for years but ultimately receives her just reward. The story was well known in the 14th century, since BOCCACCIO had included it as the last tale of his DECAMERON, and PETRARCH had so admired it that he wrote a version of the story in Latin and sent it to Boccaccio, and it is to Petrarch that the Clerk narrator attributes the story. The trial and testing elements suggest folktale origins for the Griselda story, since it resembles tales with a “beauty and the beast” sort of plot.
Walter, the marquis of Saluzzo in Lombardy, is implored by his people to take a wife and beget an heir. The carefree bachelor is reluctant, but agrees on the condition that the people accept whomever he chooses to marry. They agree, and Walter surprises everyone by choosing Griselda, daughter of the peasant Janicula, one of the poorest of his subjects.
Prior to their marriage Walter makes Griselda swear to conform her will to his: She must never question or disobey him in anything, or even complain about any of his decisions. In the course of time,Griselda gives birth to a daughter. But Walter, desiring to test Griselda’s obedience, tells Griselda that his subjects resent her and her daughter, and sends a servant to take the child from her mother, apparently to put it to death. Griselda does not complain.
Four years later Griselda gives birth to a son. When the child is two,Walter is taken again by the desire to test his wife, and he tells her that his people are angry that the descendant of the peasant Janicula is now heir to the throne.Once more Walter sends the same servant to Griselda to take her child from her, presumably, again, to put it to death. Again, Griselda raises no objection, save only to beg that the child be buried properly so that he will not be torn apart by beasts. Some years later,Walter decides to put Griselda to the ultimate test. He claims that his people are insisting he divorce her and take a new wife, and sends Griselda back to her father, wearing only a shift to cover her nakedness. In the meantime he sends word to his sister in Bologna, to whom he has sent the children, that his son and daughter should be sent home.Walter tells Griselda that the girl, now 12 years old, is to be his new bride, and orders Griselda to make preparations for his new wedding. Griselda agrees to do so, with the small caveat that Walter should not test the new bride as he did Griselda, since the girl is too tender to stand it. Finally Walter declares that “it is enough,” and tells Griselda she has passed the test. He reveals that the boy and girl are Griselda’s children, alive and well, and he welcomes Griselda back as his wife. Griselda, hearing the news, falls into a faint and grips the children so tightly that they can be released from her grasp only with great difficulty. The tale ends with Griselda’s son succeeding Walter as marquis. The Clerk moralizes at the end, saying that it would be intolerable if wives actually acted like Griselda, and that the point of the story is that people should be “constant in adversity.”He then adds an envoi, addressed specifically to the Wife of Bath, advising women not to act like Griselda but to take the reins of the marriage themselves.
Like most of Chaucer’s other religious or moral tales, The Clerk’s Tale is written in RHYME ROYAL stanzas. Otherwise it is in a rather plain style and follows Petrarch’s story fairly closely. Chaucer’s variations from Petrarch either emphasize the pathos or emotions in the story (such as the detail of Griselda’s fierce grip on her children); or add biblical allusions to stress the parallels between Griselda and Christ; or provide moral commentary, as when the narrator lashes out at Walter with frustration over his obsessive need to test his wife. Critical commentary on the tale has focused on the motives for Walter’s behavior and for Griselda’s patience. Since Chaucer makes both Walter and Griselda more human, it is more difficult to accept an allegorical reading of the tale. It is also difficult to accept the moral that we should be patient in adversity, since this puts Walter into the position of God—a position few are comfortable with. The allegorical interpretation is more palatable if one sees Griselda not as a mortal human but as the figure of Christ, softening the Father’s stance toward humanity. Some, however, have discussed the relationship of the tale to the philosophy of nominalism, which held that God’s absolute power meant he was not subject to human concepts of morality.
Bibliography
■ Benson, C. David. “Poetic Variety in the ‘Man of Law’s and the ‘Clerk’s Tales.’ ” In Chaucer’s Religious Tales, edited by C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, 137–144. Cambridge, U.K.: Brewer, 1990.
■ Georgianna, Linda.“ ‘The Clerk’s Tale’ and the Grammar of Assent,” Speculum 70 (1995): 793–821.
■ Grudin,Michaela Paasche.“Chaucer’s ‘Clerk’s Tale’ as Political Paradox,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 11 (1989): 63–92.
■ Kirk, Elizabeth. “Nominalism and the Dynamics of the ‘Clerk’s Tale’: ‘Homo Viator’ as Woman.” In Chaucer’s Religious Tales, edited by C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, 111–120. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990.
■ Lynch, Kathryn L. “Despoiling Griselda: Chaucer’s Walter and the Problem of Knowledge in ‘The Clerk’s Tale,’ ” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 10 (1988): 41–70.
■ Middleton,Anne. “The Clerk and His Tale: Some Literary Contexts,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 2 (1980): 121–150.
■ Steinmetz, David C. “Late Medieval Nominalism and the ‘Clerk’s Tale,’ ” Chaucer Review 12 (1977): 38–54.