Candice
I think that a beautiful post, and a lovely reminder of the subtleties
within Chaucer, even if he rode with his eyes down.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 2:20 AM
Subject: Re: Moral (in)visibility
> Alison wrote:
>
> > What is a better word for a
> > sense of mutual respect and mutual responsibility, which also implies
> > difference? For something which means the enrichment of social
> > relationships, in its focussing on individual validities? I do mean
> > something quite specific and real, which I know is possible from my
> > own personal relationships, but I don't quite know how to describe it.
>
> Interjecting a response to both here, I'd say read _The Franklin's Tale_,
> where the word is _gentilesse_--a nobility of spirit or sensibility in
which
> _trouthe_ and _freodom_ combine to yield the notion of integrity. When
their
> personal integrity is made the basis of Arveragus and Dorigen's
> relationship, it breeds the same in their relations with others: debts are
> forgiven precisely because they've been honored, debtors freed by virtue
of
> the binding words--their troth--to which they remain true. When Aurelius
> rises to the gentilesse of Arveragus and Dorigen, he too becomes a freeman
> ("franklin"). Resolved to be truthful to the _Maister_ (magician and
> philosopher) whom he'd wooed with a fine meal and then promised to pay an
> exorbitant sum for a seductive illusion, he is released from his own debt
in
> turn with a gesture redolent of Christopher's Prynne-at-the-table: You
paid
> for my food, says the old master of _moones mansions in minde_--"It is
> ynough."
>
> Here is what poets do and what poets learn how to do from their
> predecessors, as Chaucer learned this instructive tale from Boccaccio and
> Prynne has gone to school on the both of them, among others. What remains
to
> be done now, as always, is for the rest of the world to learn from
> poets--but the world we live in seems neither inclined to be so educated
nor
> to have produced many poets with the wherewithal for the job, including
the
> requisite gentilesse.
>
> Candice
>
>
> Christopher wrote:
>
> >> So what should poets do? What _can_ they do? The questions you began
with. I
> >> too don't believe that poetry can (or should) be justified by its
> >> _usefulness_. It's certainly not very 'useful' in any direct or obvious
way.
> >> But as writers and as readers we _can_ 'work and eat at the same
table', as
> >> Prynne puts it. We can remain alive to the consequences of what is on
that
> >> table. We can 'look to [our] limits and employ them' (also Prynne).
>
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