Chaucerian Obscenity in the Court of Public Opinion

Abstract

In academic writing over the past few decades, the adjective “Chaucerian” often modifies the word “irony” or other terms that imply his literary virtues. But in contemporary public discourse, the adjective more commonly refers to his legendary smuttiness. For example, when the pornographic film Debbie Does Dallas was turned into a musical for the stage, one theater critic described the resulting production as relying “on the Chaucerian tension of bawdiness, and the decidedly raunchy, to arrest and disturb.”1 In a 1993 essay pondering the use of authors' names as adjectives, David Mills confidently defined “Chaucerian” as “bawdy in an acceptably Olde Englishe way,” and much popular usage backs him up.2This essay tries to take the casually alleged fact of Chaucer's obscenity seriously, and argues that this has become the defining feature of his reputation in the United States. Though the position of Chaucer's work within the American curriculum remains marginal, and his hold on the popular imagination even more tenuous, his legendary obscenity keeps his work in view. Chaucer's work, I hope to show, has been and remains one of the principal places our culture articulates its standards of obscenity, pornography, censorship, and toleration. Despite the recent appearance of several excellent studies of Chaucer's nachleben over the last two centuries, the role Chaucer's work has played in delimiting the boundaries of acceptability has not been fully acknowledged by Chaucer's professional readers.3 Nor has this role remained static. And the evidence suggests that Chaucer's reputation may be changing: long viewed as canonical despite his obscenity, Chaucer may now be canonical because of his obscenity. The aim of this essay is not to decry or protest this dynamic, but simply to recognize it for what it is.A few definitions and disclaimers are necessary here. I use the terms “obscenity” and “pornography” deliberately, and eschew older terms like “bawdy” because these older terms are wrapped up in the rhetorical project of defending Chaucer's work from detractors, and because words like “bawdy” have little or no legal significance. No one has ever proposed anti-bawdiness laws. And in the context of this argument, “Chaucer” and “Chaucer's work” almost always means the Canterbury Tales, and only a few tales in particular. One could, of course, make a list of obscene or potentially obscene moments in Chaucer's other texts: Pandarus's notorious thrust under the bed sheets in Book 3 of Troilus and Criseyde, and the Parliament of Fowls with its smirking description of Priapus or its self-conscious peekaboo vision of Venus in her “subtyl coverchef”(272) might head such a list.4 But these works have much less prominence in the wider intellectual marketplace, receive less attention in the undergraduate curriculum, and attract far fewer readers than the Tales. As a result, they have played a much smaller role in defining Chaucer's reputation.The essay is also primarily concerned with Chaucer's reputation in the United States, for the reason that his obscenity has dominated readers' perceptions here in peculiar ways that it has not elsewhere. The Tales have been subject to very occasional indirect censorship in the U.K., but have not played a prominent role in legal arguments.5 In cases involving child pornography and pamphlets denying the Holocaust, Canadian courts have pointed to Chaucer's work in ways that resemble the use of Chaucer in U.S. cases, but these cases have not been as central to Canada's evolving standards of censorship.6 And as far as I have been able to discover, elsewhere in the English-speaking world Chaucer's reputed obscenity has only rarely been invoked in legal or public discourse.7 Chaucer's obscenity seems to have posed more problems for American audiences. The essay explores these problems in three sections. The first considers Chaucer's appearances in popular film and in the courts, the second considers responses from artists and critics, and the final section considers the way Chaucer's obscenity now defines his role in the classroom.In the 1962 musical film The Music Man, the movie's hero and conman, alias Professor Harold Hill, approaches the female elite of River City, Iowa, with a question about Marian, the town's attractive, mysterious librarian and piano teacher. The women immediately become agitated and break into a comic song (“Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little”) accusing Marian the librarian of moral turpitude: “She advocates dirty books! Chaucer! … Rabelais! … Balzac!” This accusation, linked with a claim that the librarian seduced a rich old man, becomes the song's refrain.8 Chaucer's alleged dirtiness matters (if only for a moment) in The Music Man because it is a story preoccupied with the double-edged sword of culture. The plot revolves around Professor Hill's attempt to con River City into buying musical instruments and band uniforms for its boys, a con game he advances by convincing the citizens that their children are morally endangered by the new arrival of a billiard table in town. It seems to be a struggle between the discipline of music versus the depravity of pool halls, except of course that it isn't. The marching band is only a con, a ruse, and Professor Hill really seems to be on the side of freedom and sexual license; the teenagers recognize this, and as soon he pitches the idea of a marching band at a town gathering, Iowa's young virgins begin kicking up their heels like Parisian can-can dancers. And the town library, where Marian acts the stereotypical repressive librarian, frowning and shushing while teenagers huddle in the stacks furtively reading Shakespeare and arranging trysts, constitutes the other nexus of this same confusion. Is Marian the librarian a sexually repressed bluestocking who will resist Professor Hill's advances and defeat his con game, or is she an agent of sexual liberation fighting on his side, a fallen woman passing out dirty books to any who ask? Does high culture (in the form of piano lessons and classic literature) represent discipline, civilization, and control? Or does it mean emancipation from stifling moral hypocrisy? Or is high culture simply a fraud—dirty books disguised as something else?9 Chaucer's appearance in this debate is meant to be comic; we are meant to conclude that only narrow-minded gossips him as But the to Chaucer only because his work might be dirty and morally simply the of in River City for the reason in Chaucer has been and in other his work has been The evidence of Chaucer's as pornography is a film The Tales of This film seems to have the attention of almost It a in Chaucer at but more in other studies of Chaucer's this is not but the film the other and of the Canterbury Tales. of Chaucer's have been to the for at the has the film seems to be something of a of for the up the with a of her and the film with a between her and the who has fallen in with are only other the the the of and the and only of the pornographic has been in of is not to his and the is the only from But the terms of the game are and is attention to the In this the to break in the but is by the who his the and and … is even a very Chaucerian debate over the question of or simply or the standards of its The Tales of Canterbury seems to be a more of Chaucer's than other it suggests that Chaucer's work may be more as pornography than as musical or as Chaucer's work has been turned into pornography, it has also been of censorship and has become the subject of legal In in a for its to course that and Chaucer's these two and to the the to this in its curriculum but it in the of an the that their first been the its way to the of that one the The three to a in of the and the they that and The are of the the this high of the and in these Though the of these in the of their the not really on the question of or the for high The not this in their the obscenity was simply by their as the in an course of the curriculum they and sexual was for the first of This question been by a and this of was in defining the of that The in their with a of the we question young the of be by these of that is no our role is not to second the of the The make that the the on or the been from the library, the might have a The in the of Chaucer's his works are that be fully they are also and at the of what be and not be these a or two the their to Chaucer's obscenity be in this reading Chaucer becomes a to or buying of Chaucer's work as pornography and the that his work may be obscene for teenagers suggests that his work at the boundaries of American and it is this role as a that Chaucer's work has played in American Though it has rarely been subject to or censorship in the last and other literary works have played more in the legal over obscenity example, has often been as an work might be by definitions of obscenity. In that books be the and that of the works of of of and of other be as of … pornographic was one of the first to the by works to be as pornographic only by in their a was in the cases involving that the of Chaucer in the American legal always of censorship, obscenity, Chaucer has been in cases involving of a by of on the of pornographic from and a pornographic of an a on the of the in a on for the This was a around artists work involving her in was the in the as that to an idea in works that the not for such works in a of from of the of and to and that is an in on the from the of up in of legal And as might be Shakespeare is by and in to But Chaucer the American as a for obscenity and works are rarely but invoked as a of the Chaucer has played a role in other of public of obscenity and In the legal and defined pornography as a of and a to pornography on these The first such the in public the and from and In the of the a of the on several to the proposed that Chaucer's of its of the sexual and of the of pornography, while an a of in might be the of the same of the other of Chaucer in of this where Chaucer's work is as a or that might be legal boundaries are The is always that a that the Canterbury Tales be for example, and from the in involving that the for might reading Chaucer on the The in that to that Chaucer not be by their for obscenity, it into the a of Chaucer's not be to the attention of children who are old to and young to be by such he by the to that a reading of the Canterbury Tales over the be the simply that young not its other moments Chaucer as a we have to at that have for example, when was for obscenity in a that words Chaucer The Chaucer that Chaucer's work as more obscene than the of and in a that the in one was of obscene the in the form of a he to a sexual acts he with her The to the but in a as Chaucerian in that the to make use of this the the words of have been but a course in it may be a it is not a the recent use of Chaucer as an for obscenity from an at the of in to their female as a an that evidence in a sexual by three other to that the word a of and that it even be a of In the that that been to the and that she is a she is also of the long of the word to at But as and this might be Chaucer for not always Or at the of the of the of was not of does this to does this to and use this word because Chaucer not use the word despite the of the that the word the Canterbury But the not what matters is Chaucer's reputation for sexually in these becomes a for obscenity that has into the of the or at into the literary obscenity as legal for of obscenity or as a for the censorship of acts as a of who by of his is sexual that the of his The legal that Chaucer's work as a rarely of his or they are matters are the of his his and his Chaucer and who have his to their their of this reputation for obscenity, to the popular of Chaucer with their definitions of obscenity. As pointed and have been with in the of as a dirty old the they first Chaucer into the to recognize that of the Canterbury Tales of make in a that Chaucer's for by his Chaucer meant to his not to readers who Chaucer's obscenity also but by the readers like him as for to And the of literary in the Chaucer's obscenity much more than they ever The the first of Chaucer's works in out the and Tales as as from other In the the and their a of the of Chaucer's an of for simply out the from their and to who often to terms like the that few readers who be old to terms like be young to few the of the and into the first of the Chaucer become a morally only a few but that in their approaches to the the and definitions of the the of the of and its in the This for the of that and are to such an that to be defined as young under the of The the American and its of obscenity no for like Chaucer's something The of the definitions of obscenity is the of the but to the of the as a for any such of Chaucer into his list of despite their in the terms for and to obscenity Chaucer as a The of Chaucer's of now be as a of or as an on pornography, or to make a between the two debate and professional readers of Chaucer an to or Chaucer's obscenity on these who Chaucer for his of and the was of course, his for defending the of the of in essay and an indirect of his work by the question to his argues that pornography is to attempt to to on and that of are not always his is because the of the the the dirty he And the of a was no that of about In an essay from the same his and the out this more this Chaucer and Shakespeare as his it to be more and than But … Shakespeare is with of the to the arrival of in appearance of in our a to our sexual The of Chaucer was of Chaucer's in several of Chaucer's a of Chaucer's at as far as with to Chaucer as in an first of Chaucer's or as an for his obscenity, these same into a of was decidedly other artists have use of Chaucer as a to the of pornography and as an of their Canterbury to make a very between and pornography, an aim in his public on the is something one of the in our on the other is the of I not to to in pornography, their And their is something while pornography is a like any in his to a by and of that his meant to the sexual of the and he viewed that with of is not a for the of sexual In by to to the of I The of in last film is the of sexual in repressive I this is they any of This is a claim and because Chaucer is his of are not or use of in these is of this attempt to as than of from of a about the of this attempt to represent begin he that the Canterbury of than his will the of his with its and of and the claim that the in his into a involving two by a the in between the two to the of by Chaucer and is a to the … But for example, who was also a a with Chaucer is a of an In her recent of argues that the is not the and that with the the of a of the of a by for the of the this of about the it what he has on It seems that in out Chaucer as an of that his was more and to the of than he may have as a of this the fact that his project to its between and pornography to a In the of between the of the and the of his a In this he suggests that his project may have been from the of has now been and by the of the of his in the may have been at by its in the U.S. and the the an from the and of in a of with now to as to on with The the the of and was by pornographic I Canterbury in the U.S. as The of and Canterbury In these and other film and on the role of words at pornographic like the of words or in pornographic In cases, was even in of that not the Canterbury Tales, and the of was Canterbury no has the to in this but that it ever is an of the peculiar way and have it out at the boundaries of viewed as or attempt to use the Canterbury Tales as a of the of pornography the position of Chaucer's at the of it its as a for definitions of obscenity, and and Chaucer in a rhetorical Hill to the of and the of In this the standards of to was to be from of at a to be from reading like For Chaucer's a in its of its is not pornography, for is on the and of and the and even the of the between the and up in the are in of a of the of the to of his are and in be they may a in such a way as to his the as a be pornography, for the is a and of the has other than the of Chaucer becomes the of a he a on in to the of in … have been and at the and of that we in pornography, the has of professional are here. One might with and that Chaucer's on in the Canterbury Tales is not one of or but a and that terms of and and from the of Chaucer studies does not their but their in in this obscene but not the means for a of and one side of a about the of pornography, an in have Chaucer as One side of this pornography as a feature of it may appearances to its and it but it remains the same in its In one of this the of the on pornography as old as the of pornography that sexually have the of has in the form of the and of and … or in the form of and and at was a in in in and in The was to be by works on for example, a recent of pornography with a of and obscenity, and to Chaucer as of of In this of argument, Chaucer is one on a between and not a popular in academic have been recent to of writing as such as that as a form of pornography, that writing that to the to for the sexual and this vision of in of a of and their have been in by other who contemporary pornography as But few on where the be As the from “bawdy” to sexual in the arrival of in the the of pornography with has to the for the of that no more to of pornography than it does to of the of of as the arrival of “pornography” as a in the same But the between of and pornography, Chaucer is often on the far side of this within the have to this reputation for in a when legal definitions of pornography to Chaucer's obscenity and for in an essay or to his question in Chaucer's and on the between Chaucer's of and and the of in the not … a for the theater of not the in of and The now on of Chaucer's even more on such of as and Chaucer is no or of It is not what has in in his to this may to of and for obscenity in the of The of in the U.S. in But the to Chaucer from or like and suggests the that Chaucer might be with such And that the moments of the Canterbury Tales him with and that Chaucer be a a but often something of essay by only three the this the or of the work as a as a the of obscenity. This the and remains of the in U.S. And essay suggests an that Chaucer's work a to make it that This same essay on and in the argues that when Chaucer his to the and the for that at his Chaucer was a and this the to the by the of obscenity in to the of the that essay has in more recent of Chaucer's obscenity. In the of the obscene have very rarely been subject to legal when high are as in of have to Chaucer's obscenity to it or it from less of to take a recent example, an essay like the and the to Chaucer's obscenity on to a of its who Chaucer's Chaucer's “bawdy” as like these on than Chaucer's The arrival of in the and Chaucer's suggests that what was out of now to become a feature of Chaucer No one to for him or to his for the first Chaucer's at the of as an academic But as I hope I have the freedom for academic readers to take his obscenity has at a it has become one of the only ways he is by popular to Chaucer has the responses of professional who have or Chaucer's obscenity on the the has as the principal for this the is where popular and academic responses to Chaucer of in of make this As new ways of defending Chaucer's obscenity in to legal standards and popular of the Tales from to and even of their obscene And and the of popular have up Chaucer's reputation for obscenity. The of Chaucer's obscenity as far as of the and in this the and other Chaucer's reputation on and often of or that the few now of him as of the Canterbury Tales, use in high and of the on the that a is not to be in a over the of that her will receive at and his also of the and Tales. to the and other by of For the first of the popular of often the and the to represent the Canterbury these two tales not readers from Chau

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