Both medieval romance and costume are areas that interest folklorists, so Laura Hodges’s third book on Chaucer’s costume rhetoric is a welcome study for many disciplines. Her first book looked at costume in the General Prologue, the second considered clerical and academic garb, also in the General Prologue. This third book reaches out to other works by Chaucer—into the tales themselves, and into the romance of Troilus and Criseyde. Hodges explores just how Chaucer uses costume to reverse and subvert audience expectations, to underline the moral and spiritual status of the character, and for comedic effect as he satirizes both arrogance and expectations. Chaucer subverts the usual descriptions of the medieval romance, which emphasizes the beauty of noble dress. Instead, he subtly uses costume for comedic, even satiric effect. In some tales he focuses on underwear—a “smok” or “sherte” which he uses to reveal the real character underneath all those layers of exotic fabric.
Using costume to delineate the inner state of a character’s mind or morality is hardly a new idea in literature. It is the skill with which Chaucer uses it that is amazing. He uses sparse, minimal details, a reversal of the expectations of the audience, details that work in clear ways to clue the reader into the agendas of the characters. Hodges writes, “costume images function as sartorial metaphors which highlight the plot structure while they explicate and elucidate characterization” (54). In Troilus and Criseyde, Troilus first appears as a warrior—a beat up warrior in keeping with his character as a good soldier. Criseyde is shown as a widow—lustrous in black, modestly veiled. The next time her array is described, she is in her underwear, her smock, a long nightgown, welcoming Troilus into her bed; at the last, she is dressed magnificently, her attention having strayed from Troilus to a new lover. Her uncle, Pandarus, who is orchestrating Criseyde’s romances, always wears a hood, a sign of his secrecy and nefarious intentions. Pandarus is a pander, a pimp, and he manipulates Criseyde for his own selfish motives. Hodges wonders if Pandarus’s hood is related to the idea of being hoodwinked; I wondered if the distrust of young men in hoodies stretched way back to the medieval.
My absolute favorite chapters were those on underwear, called (among many other things) smocks or chemises, sherts, camisas, or sarks. Sherts (for men) or smocks (long sherts for women) were the most basic garb of all people. Made generally of white linen (or silk for the very wealthy), they were easily washable undergarments or nightclothes. Women sometimes embroidered the neckline, sleeves, and hems, parts that might be seen under more the elaborate over garments that wealthy women wore--cotes, gowns or surcotes, and mantles. The very poor may have worn only a smock or shert, and it was likely made of less luxurious fabric, like hemp. However, among the upper classes, the audience for Chaucer’s works, to be seen in a smock was to be seen as nearly naked. Publically, wearing only a smock was a sign of deep humiliation, as having been stripped of rank. Privately, it was erotic. Hodges artfully examines smocks in two of the tales—Griselda’s appearance in her smock in the Clerk’s Tale, and Alison’s smock in the Miller’s Tale. Griselda’s tale is an international folktale (ATU 887) about patience and virtue. When Griselda is forced to return all her clothing to her irritable husband who repudiates her, she appears before him in her smock, a gesture of humiliation, which she bears with patience and forgiveness. Conversely, in the Miller’s Tale, when Alison appears in her smock, which has been trumped up with extra embroidery, she is more comedic than erotic. She is meant to be seen as acting above her social class, even as prostituting herself, her underwear marking her waywardness (119). Hodges includes medieval illustrations of ladies in smocks, but then goes several steps beyond—which will endear her to folklorists—by including sketches of other traditional smocks, drawn heavily from Dorothy Burnham’s 1973 landmark pamphlet and exhibit guide, Cut My Cote (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum).
The notes in this study are meticulous, routinely taking up a third of each page. One chapter has 131 footnotes. Most have about eighty, and form an absolute treasure trove for scholars. As many folklorists are medievalists in disguise, this book should have broad appeal to us, in spite of its apparently narrow focus. There is much to be learned about historic display and apparel, and understanding just how carefully Chaucer controlled his descriptions of dress, both to elucidate characters and to provide “surprises for his audience by upsetting their expectations” (186). The prose is lucid, the insights illuminating, and the book worth the trouble of reading it.
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[Review length: 786 words • Review posted on February 3, 2016]