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MUSICAL IMAGERY IN THE POETRY OF JUAN RUIZ, GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT, AND CHAUCER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
Abstract
The dissertation is an attempt to elucidate and compare the various allegorical functions of musical imagery in the verse of Juan Ruiz, Guillaume de Machaut, and Chaucer. In the past, a consensus of critics and musicologists has approached music in medieval poetry with the assumption that musical allusions merely reflect the contemporary milieu in a verisimilar way. However, critics of Chaucer in recent decades have begun to discuss how music, which evokes both divine and carnal associations in the fourteenth-century imagination, plays an important role in Chaucer's allegorical designs. By studying the meaning of music in three of the most prominent poets of the fourteenth century, two conclusions will be drawn: first, that iconographic conventions regarding music form part of a common, international "syntax" which poets of the age employ in their allegories; and, second, that these common musical conventions provide one key to the remarkable stylistic unity evident in the poetic art of fourteenth-century Europe. After a brief introduction describing the importance of musical imagery in the works of the three poets in question, Chapter II is an iconographic reading of music's function in Ruiz's Libro de buen amor. In the prose sermon, in the invocation, in the Marian lyrics, in the Arcipreste's role as a troubadour, in Don Amor's Ovidian advice to the lover-persona, in the seduction intrigue, in the canonical hours parody, in the mock-Easter procession, in the serranas, and in various exempla included throughout the LBA, Ruiz ironically conflates music's traditional divine and fleshly associations to further the allegorical sententia of his "librete de cantares." Chapter III discusses the symbolic functions of music in three of Machaut's early works: Le jugement dou roy de Behaingne, Le jugement dou roy de Navarre, and the Remede de Fortune. Unlike Ruiz, Machaut prescinds from music's carnal aspect in contemporary thought and instead uses harmony as a figure for divine order. In this way, Machaut underscores the spiritual themes that are central to his ostensibly frivolous poetic treatments of love. The fourth chapter focuses on Chaucerian poems that as yet have not received adequate critical attention regarding their use of musical imagery. In the first part of the chapter, the Book of the Duchess is shown to employ a concept of spiritually therapeutic musica divina in a Machautesque fashion. The main body of the chapter attempts to prove a bit more deeply than has previous criticism into the significance of musical allusions pertaining to the Summoner and Pardoner in the General Prologue, in the Summoner's Tale, and in the Pardoner's Tale. A consistent perversion of sacred music, it is demonstrated, helps to underscore the Summoner's and Pardoner's perversion of their ecclesiastical "degree," and furthermore illustrates the symbiotic relationship that exists between these two figures, whose singing of an amorous duet in the General Prologue intimates their collusion as fellow corrupters of divine harmony. The final chapter provides a comparative overview of the various imaginative approaches to music in the poems of Ruiz, Machaut, and Chaucer.
Subject Area
Literature|Middle Ages
Recommended Citation
LANOUE, DAVID G, "MUSICAL IMAGERY IN THE POETRY OF JUAN RUIZ, GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT, AND CHAUCER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY" (1981). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8118170.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8118170