Chapter 7: Section C topic study: the shaping presence of the narrator in later medieval literature

Recommended editions

This chapter will consider several aspects of narrative in relation to a number of texts including Sir Orfeo, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Book of Margery Kempe. You are advised to be familiar with at least some of these before reading this chapter.

Benson, Larry D. (general editor) The Riverside Chaucer. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, or any later reprint) [ISBN 0192821091].

There are many modernised versions, including:

Chaucer, G. The Canterbury Tales. Translated by Nevill Coghill for Penguin Classics. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003) [ISBN 0140424385].

The best single volume editions of the other texts covered in this chapter are:

Vinaver, Eugène (ed.), Malory: Works. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) [ISBN 0192812179].

Andrew, M. and R. Waldron (eds) The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1996) [ISBN 0859895149].

Bliss, A.J. (ed.) Sir Orfeo. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966) second edition [ISBN 0198114818].

Staley, Lynn (ed.) The Book of Margery Kempe, TEAMS Middle English Texts (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 1996) [ISBN 1879288729].

Good editions with modernised spelling are:

Cooper, Helen (ed.) Le Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) [ISBN 0199537348].

Cawley, A.C. and J.J. Anderson (eds) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (London: Dent, 1976) [ISBN 0460113461].

For easy-to-read versions see these translations:

Schmidt, A.V.C. (trans.) Piers Plowman: A New Translation of the B-Text. (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2009) [ISBN 0199555265].

Windeatt, Barry (trans.) The Book of Margery Kempe. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 2000) [ISBN 0140432515].

For a good general overview of the subject see:

Davenport, Tony Medieval Narrative: an Introduction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) [ISBN 0199258392].

Maddern, Carole Medieval Literature: Texts, Contexts, Connections. (London: York Press, 2010) [ISBN 9781408204757].

Introduction

Medieval writers employ many traditional and innovative means of shaping and colouring their narratives. The narrator becomes a key figure in later medieval texts. This is the period in which vernacular lyrics in particular contribute to the development of a range of techniques for communicating and exploring subjectivity. Sometimes, the presence of a mediating, controlling figure (the narrator) is slight. Even if there is no particular characterisation, the text remains dependent on a constructed persona to transmit it. Other texts employ more fully developed and distinctive narrative presences. In this chapter we shall appraise a range of works, both poetry and prose, to explore the range and variety of medieval narrative personae. Chapter {???} above considers some of the complexities of layered meaning which a writer such as Henryson achieves via his narrator in the Moral Fables. Awareness of the shaping, controlling presence of the narrator is vital to gain a deeper appreciation of medieval texts. The period witnessed a considerable achievement in deploying the teller of a tale or the presenter of the poem as a key ingredient in the work. There is a danger that this narrator can easily be assumed to be identical with the author, so you are advised to avoid falling into this trap. Chaucer and Langland may employ narrators sharing their names but the narrators remain distinctive literary fictions, with unknown and unknowable relationships with their poetic creators (for discussion of the figure Will in Piers Plowman see Chapter 2 above). They are best regarded as tools of the writer, consciously invented and deployed. Chaucer’s own pilgrim self in the Canterbury Tales is an excellent case in point, as it is very easy to identify him with the poet Chaucer.

Activity

Consider the characterisation of the ‘pilgrim Chaucer’ in the General Prologue.

The narrator’s naïve, uncritical presentation of the pilgrims in the General Prologue is distinct from the authorial perspective which is ironising these observations. The ‘pilgrim Chaucer’ figure unquestioningly reports and approves everything, to glaring comic effect:

This ilke Monk leet olde thynges pace...

And I seyde his opinion was good.

He anxiously excuses the crude stories he is going to tell:

But first I pray yow, of youre curteisye,

That ye n’arrette it nat my vileynye.

Chaucer’s acquiescent pilgrim persona provides only the most well-known instance of multi-layered narrative, with an increasingly sophisticated construction of a persona. Here there is clearly a gap between the naïve, approving voice of the narrator and that of the poet. As we examine several texts, we shall be alert to such a distinction between fictive persona and author. We shall distinguish the precise features of the narrator which contribute to the design of each work. The prominence of the narrator is an easily quantifiable aspect which reveals much. The aim of this chapter is to foreground the often overlooked presence of a narrative persona and to encourage greater alertness and attentiveness to this crucial figure. In assessing the literary merits of any medieval text, it is advisable to consider how great a proportion of the text consists of narration, as opposed to description, action and direct or reported speech. Immediately we are approaching the self-conscious artistry of the writer. We are analysing how the text works, its effect upon the reader and so on.

Critical approaches and terminology

There are three main areas to consider when approaching narrative: the narrator, the narrative (type, design and technique) and the narratee.

The Narrator

Activity

Research the following terms: the omniscient narrator, the fallible narrator, the reliable narrator, the unreliable narrator, first person narrative, third person narrative.

This should provide you with an understanding of the fundamental types of narrator. These figures function to deliver the story, to perform the tale. But they are employed by writers for different purposes. The authoritative narrator displays an absolute knowledge of events. These events may be related using a personal pronoun referring to the immediate experience of the speaker (the ‘I’ voice), which imparts direct, intimate awareness of the individual. Alternatively, use of a third person pronoun (he, she, it, they) relates events from a more detached but still authoritative position. The notion of reliability depends upon whether the apparent confidence of the speaker in the accuracy of the telling proves justified. Readers may perceive discrepancies and flaws in the account which are unremarked or unacknowledged by the narrator. This can set up ironic gaps between the narrator and the reader. When assessing the narrator, ask questions such as: is the perspective limited? Are there inconsistencies or inaccuracies? Does the perspective shift? Are there multiple narrators? Is the opinion being presented that of an informed observer or a partial witness?

Activity

Apply these questions to the following passage:

An other tyme the seyd creatur beheld how owr Lady was, hir thowt, in deying and alle the apostelys knelyng beforn hir and askyng grace. Than sche cryid and wept sor. The apostelys comawndyd hir to cesyn and be stille.

(From The Book of Margery Kempe)

This passage demonstrates a fluid narrative technique. It opens with an omniscient observer, who describes the external and internal events experienced by the ‘creatur’, Margery’s habitual third person reference to herself. The narrator appears to be a deliberate construct to represent Margery as if there were a detached, neutral observer reporting her experience. The vision ‘beheld’ is presented with Margery as the focaliser. The scene is a subjective perception (‘hir thowt’ means, ‘it seemed to her’). There is a return to a more detached view when the emotional response is reported by the observer. Then there is another shift, as the narrator breaks the ‘vision’ frame to reveal that Margery has entered the world of the vision, when she is addressed by the apostles. The fact that even a short piece of narrative can present multiple dimensions shows how attentively we must read in order to appreciate the narrative strategies of a text.

Narrative

There are many narrative techniques which guide and influence the reader in different ways.

Activity

Research the following terms to gain an understanding of their meaning when applied to medieval literature: polyphonic, dialogic, didactic, exempla, focaliser.

These are all key features of medieval narrative technique. As you read, be aware of these aspects of the text. In particular, pay attention to the narrative voice(s). Style and structure often contribute to meaning. Writers in this period are experimenting with variety, with multiple layers of meaning, different presentational methods such as framed narrative, and rhetorical strategies. Chaucer demonstrates familiarity with medieval handbooks’ recommendations on the art of poetry, for example, in Troilus and Criseyde (Book I, II 1065–71):

For every wight that hath an hous to founde [person]

Ne runneth naught the werk for to bygynne

With rakel hond, but he wol bide a stounde. [quick, while]

This echoes closely the advice of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, in his Poetria Nova, ‘If a man has to build a house, he does not rush to the task impetuously’. The planning and layout of a text, as a house, is crucial in medieval literature. The narrator functions very much as architect in this design. This period was not overtly concerned with originality, but with new means of presenting material. Among the most important devices favoured by medieval writers are arrangement, amplification and abbreviation.

Activity

Find out the meaning of these rhetorical devices.

These are the medieval authors’ primary means of treating material in individual ways, allowing them to place emphasis on certain aspects of a text, and to insinuate new meanings into traditional stories. They involve the rhetorical concept of dispositio (the artful arranging of material). We shall explore some instances of such control of content below.

Narratee

The narrator may address a particular listener or group, explicitly or implicitly. Having a sense of the audience is important when analysing how a narrative is designed and how certain impressions are created. The figure to whom the narrative is presented is known in modern narrative theory as the narratee. This may be a reader, but in this period it is more likely to be a listener. Medieval habits of reading texts can be inferred from scenes such as that in Troilus and Criseyde, where the heroine first appears with ‘two othere ladys sete’:

Withinne a paved parlour, and they thre

Herden a mayden reden hem the geste

Of the siege of Thebes, while hem leste.

(Book II, ll. 82-4)

This experience of texts as a communal leisure activity is very different to modern reading practices. Most medieval ‘readers’ were in fact listeners, experiencing the text as oral performance. It is important to remember that the later Middle Ages form a transitional phase between orality and literacy. In another of his works, The House of Fame, Chaucer creates for himself an oddly bookish persona, who is mocked for his habit of reading silently alone, ‘as domb as any stoon, / Thou sittest at another book / Tyl fully dawsed is thy look’ (656–8). Clearly this sort of behaviour is considered very strange.

The rest of this chapter will explore a range of late medieval texts, with a view to analyse the function of the narrator and some of the key narrative strategies adopted by medieval writers. We shall be primarily concerned with the role of the narrator, examining four different functional types: the neutral narrator, the subtle narrator, the opinionated narrator and the participating narrator. Each has certain advantages and disadvantages for the writer. There is no implied hierarchy present, and they are not to be seen as an evolving sequence, but as alternative methods of narrating.

The neutral narrator: simple storytelling

The narrator can be almost invisible, glimpsed only in terms of how the material is arranged and delivered (lexis, structure, tone, emphasis and so on). This figure is represented as a detached observer.

Activity

Read the opening and closing sections of Sir Orfeo, and consider how the narrator is constructed.

The narrative voice immediately claims a common identity with the audience, ‘We redeth oft and findeth’, distancing himself from the learned literary elite (‘this clerkes’). As the introductory section develops, the narrator is clearly presented as a minstrel figure, addressing his audience directly, ‘Herkneth lordinges’. The narrator is cast as a figure familiar with lays and harping, establishing a framing situation. The story of Orfeo is then delivered in a very plain style, largely devoid of any discernible narrative presence. At the end of the poem, the minstrel persona reappears, directly addressing the audience. The narrator now dismantles the fiction he created, progressively moving away from the past into the ‘present’ of his performance, and beyond, into a potential future:

Harpours in Bretaine after than

Herd hou this mervaile bigan

And made herof a lay of gode likeing…

Gode is the lay, swete is the note.

Thus com Sir Orfeo out of his care;

God graunt ous alle wele to fare. Amen. (Italics mine)

This neatly resolves the suspension of time during the storytelling, returning to the ‘real’ world. The story is generically defined, labelled as an artificial construct, as a means of drawing back from involvement in the vivid realisation of the narrated events. The narrator formally closes his fictional storytelling with a wider reference to the audience for whom the story serves as a moral exemplar. This type of ‘coda’, where a moral purpose or didactic intention is revealed, is a common feature in medieval literature. As fiction was held in suspicion among certain people, poets often offer such a moral perspective to their work.

Activity

Identify several such moral codas, and consider how they function as a means of closure. (You might look at some of the individual Canterbury Tales.)

Another kind of detached observer is the narrator of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. The work begins, ‘Hit befel in the dayes of Uther Pendragon...’. This is an impersonal statement of fact. Much of the work is cast in the same neutral voice, even when communicating horrific details:

Than sir Lucan toke up the kynge ... and in the lyfftyng up the kynge sowned, and in the lyfftyng sir Lucan felle in a sowne, that parte of hys guttis felle oute of hys body’.

The matter of fact tone creates a stark effect of horror. The speaker remains emotionally uninvolved. This pose of objective chronicler of events is marked in the Morte Darthur. Many features of the style contribute to the general impression of detachment and objectivity. The prose form itself is important, as is the resolutely plain style of the diction and syntax.

Activity

Select a page or two from Malory’s work, and analyse how the narrator is delivering the material. Try to find a range of features of style and language.

One of the main foundations for Arthurian literature was originally produced as a history, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin Historia Regum Brittaniae (c.1136). The persona of historian dominates Malory’s work. The narrator is presented as a careful compiler, restricting his account to verifiable, textual authority, ‘Thus of Arthur I fynde no more wrytten in bokis that ben auctorysed’. There is a persistent foregrounding of documentary sources, with repeated reference to the ‘Frensch booke’ (over 70 times). The processes of compiling and retelling the story are frequently made explicit with reference to mislaid or unavailable materials, breaking the fictive framework. The account is characterised by scrupulous attention to authenticating detail and chronology. One example is the naming of every one of the 110 knights who attempt to heal Sir Urry. Among the most prominent aspects of the style is the use of parataxis (statements which coexist without subordination or connection, also known as an additive style). This creates a strong impression of orderly sequence, but leaves the significance of and relationship between statements unclear, open to interpretation. This narrator does on occasion contribute comment and opinion as we shall see below, but is primarily disembodied and restricted. The narrative technique employs a distinctive style marked by formality, restricted diction, codes and formulae.

Activity

You might like to read P.J.C. Field’s Romance and Chronicle: A Study of Malory’s Prose Style (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1971) for a full analysis of this topic.

The growth and diversity of romance as a genre resulted in a proliferation of literary sources. Romance cycles developed which assimilated many different kinds of material, amalgamating them within the Arthurian legend. This contributes to Malory’s polyphonic style, for example in the ‘Book of Sir Tristram’. The earlier story is drastically reconfigured so that the famous love potion and ultimate tragedy are relegated to the periphery, in order to focus narrative attention upon Tristram’s role as a fellow of the Round Table and friend of Lancelot. A non-Aristotelian aesthetic presides (multiplicity in place of any notion of coherence or unity). Malory’s work, like many late romances, is composite and digressive. In such a literary environment, only the slightest narrative presence is to be found.

The subtle narrator: concealed control

Slightly more developed narrators can exert more apparent influence. In the case of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, there is no named speaker, and very little indication of a particular character. However, on closer analysis, the narrator is a key figure in shaping and presenting the poem. This narrator does more than simply observe.

Activity

Read the opening stanzas of the poem, and consider how the speaker is colouring the material and setting up expectations among the audience.

From the very beginning, the narrator is controlling and guiding responses. Initially, he evokes a sweeping panorama of history; then he introduces key terms associated with Arthurian romance, to suggest further generic affiliations. This unidentified yet apparently authoritative voice goes on to pose as a mere minstrel. He claims to represent material experienced orally:

If ye wyl lysten this laye bot a littel quile, [while]

I schal telle hit astit, as I in toun herde. [quickly]

The characterisation of this ‘I’ voice is quickly revealed to be deceptive, as the poem demonstrates extraordinarily elaborate and literary qualities. Like Malory’s chronicler, this narrator alludes to a literary source several times (e.g. lines 690, 2523), anchoring the material in ‘fact’ but also breaking the illusion of spontaneous performance. Indeed, the verse form of this poem is unparalleled in medieval literature, with its demanding rhyme scheme and extensive linguistic range. The narrator then retreats for much of the time, but re-enters on occasion to express an opinion or to address Gawain (‘Thenk wel, Sir Gawan’) or the audience (‘I am intent yow to telle’). Despite the ostensible retreat of the narrator-minstrel, he remains visibly in control of the narrative.

Activity

Read the opening two stanzas of Fitt 2. Where and how is the narrator a distinct presence?

When the narrator addresses the audience, as ‘ye’, he speaks authoritatively of time and seasonal cycles. The tone is one of absolute confidence, almost gnomic (concerned with the sententious communicating of ‘truths’). The firm control is evident in the detailed description of the year passing before our eyes, creating a sense of the narrator’s quasi-divine power. It is he who is commanding the seasonal processes, through his artful description.

Activity

Try to find examples of the narrator’s controlling presence, even in places where he is not explicitly active.

Once you start to look more closely, this unobtrusive narrator can be seen to effect a good deal of the poem’s design. Key information is concealed from the audience, as when the knight’s greenness is revealed belatedly as the final detail in the lengthy description. Bercilak’s identity is similarly concealed, as is Morgan’s agency. Most strikingly of all, the central crisis of the story occurs unnoticed, as Gawain’s crucial challenge comes in disguise.

The narrator is a key element in the poem’s complexity. Through him, the poet playfully manipulates and frustrates the audience’s expectations. This multi-layered work resists easy interpretation. It is not simply that the narrator controls and conceals so effectively, but that he deploys all the techniques of narrative skilfully. More than a quarter of the poem is direct speech, giving it a semi-dramatic intensity. The structure and plotting is artful, incorporating various stories from folk tale and legend (the stories of the Green Knight’s challenge, the Temptation of Gawain by the host’s wife and the exchange of winnings) into traditional Arthurian material to achieve a polyphonic masterpiece.

The opinionated narrator: active involvement

In contrast to the previously considered narrators who are largely concealed or thinly characterised, some narrators exhibit much more developed personalities and preferences. Here, personal opinion constitutes a major part of the narrative. The material is conveyed from a distinctive, partial perspective, removing all pretence of objectivity. This is where poets experiment with unreliable narrators, and generate greater involvement on the part of the audience in decoding meaning. Chaucer is particularly concerned with demonstrating the questionable authority of texts.

Activity

Read the section of the Wife of Bath’s Prologue about the fable of the man and the lion, noting the suggestive points being raised in relation to literary authority.

Chaucer uses this fable to encapsulate the bias inherent in literature. He draws attention to the control of those who relate and disseminate texts, and to the unreliability of literary ‘authority’.

Activity

Consider the nature and role of the narrator in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde
(e.g. Book I lines 1-70; Book II lines 1-48).

This figure is characterised by many traits which recur across various Chaucerian narrators. He is hard pressed to tell his story, anxious, ill-equipped, inept, and lacking confidence. This constructed persona enables Chaucer to communicate layered meanings. The mediating voice of the narrator adds layers of misunderstanding and ineptitude to the story which a more confident narrator would not. The use of such a deliberately self-effacing narrator is one of Chaucer’s favourite rhetorical ploys, known as the ‘humility topos’.

Activity

Look out for examples of this humility topos as you read Chaucer’s work.

Later in Troilus and Criseyde, the narrator becomes increasingly emotionally involved in his story. He protectively seeks to counter the response of ‘som envious’ who might be hostile to Criseyde (II 666). At the height of the lovers’ blissful union, the narrator is himself intoxicated by the ecstasy (III lines 1317–23). As the tale of betrayal unfolds, the narrator can hardly bear to accept what is happening, ‘Men seyn, I noot, that she yaf hym hire herte’ (V line1050). The conclusion reveals the full extent of the narrator’s antipathy to his material, as he performs a violent volte face. Instead of empathising with his heroine and pitying his hero, suddenly he denounces them as ‘corsed’ pagans .

Activity

Read and consider the range of critical interpretations of this conclusion, in The Riverside Chaucer p.1056, note to lines 1772–1869.

Another instance where Chaucer foregrounds narrative partiality to such an extent as to make nonsense of the telling is the ‘Clerk’s Tale’ of Patient Griselda. This exemplary woman was the focus of many moralistic pieces of the period (e.g. in sermons and handbooks of ideal female behaviour). Chaucer acknowledges his source as Petrarch, although he was probably also familiar with the story as the final tale of the final day in Boccaccio’s Decameron. A moral allegorical reading of the story depends on a simplistic delivery. When Chaucer presents the story, he enhances the pathos so that it becomes a harrowing account of a wife and mother persistently and cruelly abused by her husband. One of the devices used to complicate and produce conflicting responses is the narrator.

Activity

Read The Clerk’s Tale, with careful consideration of the notes in The Riverside Chaucer, which detail precisely how and where Chaucer adds realistic detail and emotive colouring to the story.

One of the means by which the narrative achieves intensity is the use of the Clerk as an innocent narrator. He consistently regards Griselda as a ‘real’ woman rather than as a personification of patient suffering. He cannot refrain from judging Walter, ‘But as for me, I seye that yvele it sit’. Repeatedly, he interjects, ‘O stormy peple! Unsad and evere untrewe!’.

Activity

Identify precisely the variety of different responses to the tale when it concludes.

The moral interpretation is withheld until the end whereas in Petrarch’s version it is stated plainly at the beginning. The provision of multiple responses further contributes to the difficulties in accepting the traditional allegorical reading. At least four contradictory responses are inscribed: the original ‘moral’ lesson; denial of its general application; encouragement of women to rebel against such strictures; and the literal reading of the unhappily married Host and Merchant who envy Walter. By over determining the tale’s meaning in this way, Chaucer employs the Clerk as a disruptive presence. The assigning of meaning is revealed as arbitrary and contingent on personal prejudice.

A sense of the narrator being at odds with his material, resenting its essential nature, also informs Malory’s Morte Darthur. Although Malory’s work generally employs a detached style of narrative, there are notable occasions when the chronicler becomes assertive and opinionated. Temporarily, he assumes a greater presence, and expresses an opinion of the events he is depicting.

Activity

Identify a range of occasions in Books 7 and 8 where the presence of the narrator becomes explicit. Try to assess the impact on the narrative.

In Book 7, at the beginning of the Knight of the Cart episode, the narrator is moved to comment wistfully on ‘unstable love’:

In many persones there ys no stabylité: for we may se all day, for a lytyll blaste of wyntres rasure, anone we shall deface and lay aparte trew love, for lytyll or nowght, that coste muche thynge. Thys ys no wysedome nother no stabilité, but hit ys fyeblenes of nature and grete disworshyp, whomsomever usyth thys.

Such passages make all the more impact because they are relatively rare. The primary narrative medium of neutral observation suddenly shatters to present a keenly concerned involvement. Especial fervour is apparent towards the end, as the traitor Mordred is accepted as king in Arthur’s stead:

Lo ye all Englysshemen, se ye nat what a myschyff here was?... Lo thus was the olde custom and usayges of thys londe, and men say that we of thys londe have nat yet loste that custom. Alas! Thys ys a greate defaughte of us Englysshemen, for ther may no thynge us please no terme.

The interjection of such passionate feeling reminds the audience of the narrator lurking all the while behind the pose of objectivity. At times, there is explicit censoring of material, ‘Whether they were abed other at other maner of disportis, me lyste nat therof make no mencion, for love that tyme was nat as love ys nowadayes’. By invoking a ‘present’ (nowadays) the narrator breaks the fictive illusion of actuality. He also admits that personal preference is governing the choice and presentation of the events depicted. This works to unsettle the artifice of neutral reportage.

Most obviously, the narrator steps forward ‘in ‘propria persona’ in the series of incipits and explicits which mark the beginning and end of each Book. These explicitly identify the narrator as the author of the work, ‘I praye you all jentylmen and jentylwymmen that redeth this book ... praye for me... For this book was ended the ninth yere of the reygne of King Edward the fourth, by Syr Thomas Maleoré, knight...’

These are among the most striking occasions where the boundaries between narrator and author become blurred. Overall, Malory maintains a careful control and anonymity, reserving moments of outspoken opinion and self-reference for occasional special effect.

The participating narrator: key protagonist

At times, the narrator is accorded a prominent, central role within the narrative. This figure is constructed as a complex character, with a distinctive personality and voice.

Activity

Read Chaucer’s ‘General Prologue’ to The Canterbury Tales, to formulate a full account of the ‘character’ of the pilgrim Chaucer. What kind of personality is conveyed and how?

The ‘I’ persona appears at line 20, in a very specific location (the Tabard Inn in Southwark, South London). This figure recounts, with plausible details, how he meets and befriends a group of pilgrims. As he begins to describe each pilgrim in turn, some of his officiousness is revealed as he earnestly explains what he is doing (ll. 35-42). The impression is of a capable, if rather self-conscious presenter. It is when the descriptions of selfishness, greed and wickedness accumulate without any consternation on the part of the narrator that we begin to doubt his reliability. The gap between his observations of sinfulness and his relentless approval grows ever wider and indicates the limitation of his understanding. Either that, or he is extremely subtle and manipulative.

Activity

What do you think of this narrator? Is this an ironic revelation of inadequacy? Is it a subtle means of arousing the reader’s distrust? Or can it be read as a deliberate method of representation on the narrator’s part, to expose without explicit condemnation (crediting him with great intelligence and expertise)?

The pilgrim Chaucer is generally regarded as one of Chaucer’s typically playful fictive personae. As a character, he might possess hidden depths, but it is safer to attribute the delicacy to Chaucer the poet. The comic narrator filters everything through transparently naive perception. This allows the audience to see more clearly from a position of independent assessment than if the narrator explicitly denounced the sinful pilgrims. The narrator also develops a role of active participant in the storytelling contest, depicted as comically inept. His physical appearance amuses the Host, who decides the pilgrim Chaucer as ‘a popet in an arm t’embrace . . . elvish by his countenaunce’ (‘Prologue to Sir Topas’). Chaucer’s insertion into the narrative of an alter ego is a comic device, creating a poetic surrogate who delivers such a banal tale that the Host is moved to cut him short, ‘Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!’

A text where the boundaries between author and narrator are even more obscured is The Book of Margery Kempe.

Activity

Consider the Proem and chapter 89 of The Book of Margery Kempe. Who narrates and how are they characterised?

Three specific people contribute to the narrative: Margery, dictating her life story; her first scribe who dies before the work is completed; and a priest who is persuaded to resume the story after a miraculous healing of his eyesight. In the Proem, the text purports to be a biographical account of mystical experience. In this period, many such accounts were being produced. A new mode of personal analysis and self-awareness was in vogue. Whereas most spiritual biographies were written by third parties, Margery Kempe’s memoirs relate events from the perspective of a markedly present subject. This subject recounts her experiences without using the direct ‘I’ voice, preferring to employ the third person, ‘this creatur’. The Book of Margery Kempe is widely regarded as the first autobiography in English. Although framed as an independently witnessed account, scribed on behalf of the illiterate Margery, the Book presents its materials very much as personal recollection. The scribe is a mediating presence, but primary is the impression of Margery herself as narrator. Specific narrative strategies can be observed, as Margery attempts to align her story with those of famous mystics, such as Julian of Norwich, Christina of Markyate and St Bridget of Sweden. But even as The Book presents events which conform to models of confessional and miracle, it is coloured by the powerful personality of the narrator.

Activity

Can you select a range of incidents where the narrator is characterised as a formidable, assertive woman?

It is notable that the narrator has a highly individual personality and voice. This narrator recounts events from a plausibly realistic perspective, losing the narrative thread, wandering chronologically and so on. She also unwittingly reveals a great deal of perplexing self-regard even as she seeks to promote an image of humility and deference. In attempting to disentangle the fictive and actual processes of narrating, Lynn Staley distinguishes between Margery (the work’s subject) and Kempe (the self-conscious authorial persona). One of the most characteristic features of Kempe is her extreme fixation on the physical and material rather than the divine and the spiritual. Kempe’s account of intimate encounters with Jesus and Mary can be seen to betray latent sexual desire and sublimation. For example, when she ‘marries’ Jesus, the motif of mystical union is transfigured into an awkwardly literal mode.

Activity

Read Chapter 36 of the Book and consider its representation of both Kempe and Margery.

The manner in which Kempe has Jesus address her reveals much about her own predilections:

Thu mayst boldy, whan thu art in thi bed, take me to the as for thi weddyd husbond, as thy derworthy derlyng . . . thu mayst boldly take me in thy armys of thi sowle and kissen my mowth, myn hed, and my fete as swetly as thow wylt.

Clearly, Kempe lacks discernment to realise when she is overstepping boundaries. She is an unaware narrator lacking objectivity. Margery Kempe’s Book is a fascinating document, not least for what it reveals about issues of narrative complexity and difficulty.

This chapter has considered a wide range and variety of narrators. Many contrasting narrative strategies have been analysed, which attest to the complex nature of late medieval narrative practices. The period witnesses innovation and experimentation on a grand scale, and develops multiple discourses. Attention on narrative persona permitted a growing interest in differentiation and in subtle manipulation of the narrator for very different ends. Study of the role of the narrator can help to understand much of the authorial practice of medieval writers. Also, new interest in characterisation and consistently deployed persona led to the emergence of new subjective positions and new techniques. The narrator is a crucial component of any text and often functions in surprisingly sophisticated ways. In short, the figure of the narrator is vital to consider when responding to the impact and meaning of a text.

Learning outcomes

Having completed this chapter, and the relevant reading and activities, you should be able to:

Sample examination questions

1. Compare and contrast any two Chaucerian pilgrim personae.

2. Consider some of the different effects achieved by the deployment of multiple narrators.

3. Explore in detail the influence of any single narrative device.

4. To what extent does an unreliable narrator open up the possibilities of wider meaning in a text?