Chaucer's Rape, Southern Racism, and the Pedagogical Ethics of Authorial Malfeasance

College English Jul 2005 Open Access

Chaucer's Rape, Southern Racism, and the Pedagogical Ethics of Authorial Malfeasance

Tison Pugh

Abstract

I 'm glad we don't know whether Chaucer raped one of my brightest students exclaimed, because if he did, I couldn't like And I want to like him if I'm going to read him. The student was responding to my lesson on Chaucer's biography. Within the scope of my upper-level undergraduate Chaucer course, I include pertinent information about his participation in fourteenth-century English social and political life, and I thought it worthwhile to mention that, according to court documents, Cecily Chaumpaigne in 1380 released Geoffrey Chaucer from omnimodas acciones tam de raptu meo tam [sic] de aliqua alia re velcausa-'actions of whatever kind either concerning my rape or any other matter' (Howard 317). I explained to the class that no certain interpretation of this inscrutable event exists. Because raptus could refer to either a kidnapping or a rape, medievalists can do little more than conjecture about the events that transpired between Chaucer and Cecily Chaumpaigne.' My student seized this ambiguity and therein found sufficient wiggle room in her reaction to Chaucer that she could continue to enjoy his literature without having to commit herself to liking the works of a rapist. For her, the potential ethical ramifications of aligning a personal affection for Chaucer and his literature with her contemporary social and political beliefs were alleviated by a welcome gap in historical knowledge. As happens so frequently in the classroom, we moved beyond this moment, but my student's words stuck with me uncomfortably. What if Chaucer had indeed been a rapist? How would I encourage my students to negotiate the difficult readerly terrain of enjoying great literature written by bad people? Other literature professors face similar uncomfortable moments with, for example, Malory's rape, Spenser's violent diatribes against the Irish, Byron's incest, Yeats's and Pound's Fascist sympa-

Journal: College English
Published: 2005-07-01
DOI: 10.2307/30044653
Open Access: OA PDF Green
Topics: race and writing