From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
> Chaucer was a 14th Century Catholic,
Well, there wasn't much alternative in Western Europe at that time (though
I think someone else on this thread raised the possiblity of his Lollard
sympathies).
> and I should think it credible that he
> wanted to be "oon of hem that at the day of doom shulle be saved,"
Don't we all?
> whatever
> Whyatt's motivation may have been. But maybe he was just pretending.
Maybe
> Dante was, too, and St. Augustine, and Matthew Mark Luke and John. And
even
> Gerard Manley Hopkins. Maybe everyone has always been just like us, or
> perhaps just like you. Maybe history will never end because it's never
begun.
This multiplication of examplars would seem to prove my point rather than
otherwise. Though as far as I'm aware, the evangels and Augustine were
theologians (?) rather than poets. The Chaucerian renunciation (as with
the others I cited) was of profane writings. Augustine (in that old
chestnut) regretted the pear-stealing incident, but not renouncing his
mistress and illegitimate son, and went on to write (all too copiously)
_The City of God_. Then returned in the pre-Renaissance to chat with
Petrarch who (Ermina I'm sure can refine this) either did or didn't
renounce/regret his celebration of Laura. Hopkins (other than with _The
Wreck ..._) may not have actively attempted to publish but he didn't burn
his manuscripts -- as did who?
Perhaps those who +seriously+ renounced their works have encountered a
perduring silence. Those who remain to protest it failed in their
attempts.
Incidentally, Chaucer goes to some pains to make sure his readers know just
+what+ he's renouncing -- Troilus, The Book of the Duchess, The Canterbury
Tales -- surely a bit of self-promotion here? And given the exceptions
made for the translation of Boethius, books of legends, saint's live's and
devotions, where do we place The Parson's Tale or that farrago of
anti-semitic nonsense, The Prioress's Tale?
Also, given (if it is given) the ambiguity and irony of "Chaucer"/Chaucer,
who indeed utters the renunciation? The speaker (not the author) of The
Tale of Sir Thopas ...?
Robin Hamilton
We have eaten garlic everyone.
I know that if I to hell be gone,
I know I shall not go alone ...
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