Nancy Mason Bradbury’s Rival Wisdoms: Reading Proverbs in the Canterbury Tales proposes that Chaucer was a proverb-conscious writer, and that his pre-modern audience viewed proverbs as a profitable source of wisdom. While the verbal form of the proverb has been derided as cliché or lowbrow by modern literary standards, Bradbury argues that premodern readers were unbothered by the form’s lack of originality. If anything, the proverb’s success lies in its simplicity as it “transforms human experiences into a compact and communicable form” (25). Early on,Bradbury acknowledges the obstacles to studying pre-modern proverbs. Echoing Archer Taylor’s conclusion in his foundational work,The Proverb, this study emphasises the impossibility of distinguishing between expressions of popular and learned origin. [1] Attempts to separate sentence from proverbe, as Whiting sought to do in his 1934 study of Chaucer’s proverbs, are “doomed to frustration” (20). This study is instead primarily interested in the use of proverbs and their functions as an “embedded microgenre” (35). Their uses are varied and multifaceted. Proverbs, as Bradbury neatly summarises, have a “capacity for good and also for harm” (4).
The first chapter, “Proverbs and Premodern Reading Practices” showcases the breadth of this study. It discusses the premodern literary cultures in which proverbs flourished, drawing from a broad range of premodern users and producers of proverbial wisdom. Bradbury traces early engagement with Chaucer’s proverbs by English schoolmasters and printmakers before turning to Erasmus as a case study for Chaucer’s engagement with proverbs. Here, Erasmus’ assertion that the purpose of the proverb was to provide profit and pleasure is aptly compared with the Canterbury host Harry Bailey’s request for “tales of best sentence and moost solaas” (15). In a compelling section on “proverbiality”--a useful term borrowed from anthropologist Shirley Arora--Bradbury posits that communities play a vital role in the development of proverbial expressions. While proverbs often have impressive longevity, expressions need not have historic roots or be in common usage to be thought of as proverbial. Proverbs that are “freshly minted,” as Bradbury puts it, are considered proverbs because they are perceived as such (22). This argument is nicely illustrated by examples of Chaucer’s playful use of common Middle English proverb markers in The Miller’s Tale and Troilus and Criseyde. As Bradbury explains, “Chaucer very likely made up some of the expressions he solemnly labels as old, wise, or common” (37).
The subsequent chapter, “The Rival Wisdoms of Clerks and Cherles” focusses on the Tales of the Miller, Reeve, Friar, Summoner, and Canon’s Yeoman. Bradbury posits that proverbs “exert a special strength in situations of unequal power” (45) and this idea is illustrated by the exchange of proverbs between the Chaucer’s Canterbury clerks and cherls. The fifteenth-century bishop Reginald Pecock’s objection to the proverbial claim “grettist clerkis ben not wisest men”--a proverb employed by Symkin in “The Reeve’s Tale”--is introduced into the discussion to illustrate late-medieval anxieties that lay use of proverbs challenged the pre-eminence of clerical wisdom. This chapter pays especial attention to the different forms of wisdom featured in “The General Prologue,” tracing Chaucer’s use of knowen, kunne, witen and their position in the hierarchy of wisdom. Bradbury draws attention to Chaucer’s sustained interest in experiential wisdom in the Canterbury Tales, which is nicely illustrated by discussing the poet’s use of the expression “Wel koude he” in the “General Prologue” portraits. Importantly, as Bradbury notes, experiential wisdom is associated with both clerks and cherls and is harnessed for both reputable and disreputable ends. Bradbury then turns to “rustic” proverbs as a special category associated with cherls, before contrasting this form of experiential wisdom with the more securely clerical Solomonic wisdom. The tension between rustic and Solomonic wisdom is brought to life by a close examination of the proverbs used by Nicholas and John in “The Miller’s Tale.” Readers are provided with an in-depth comparison of John’s proverb-use and Nicholas’s displays of Solomonic authority. Bradbury deepens the argument by turning to other microgenres found in the Tale such as John’s “nyght-spel” and the frequent oath-making of the central characters. Through the introduction of these microgenres alongside the proverbs, the complexity of Chaucer’s engagement with proverbial wisdom is brought to the foreground. John’s proverb use indicates his earnest, sincere expressions of faith. By contrast, the same microgenres are employed profanely by Nicholas and Absolon to serve their own, ethically troubling, ends. This chapter concludes with a study of the Reeve’s equally troubling misuse of proverbs. The reader is faced with a lot of material in this chapter, but Bradbury carefully guides us through each primary text, skilfully drawing out the often-contradictory nature of proverb usage in Chaucer’s works.
Clerks remain a core focus of chapter three. However, in this instance, it is the Wife of Bath’s use of proverbs to challenge the misogyny of clerical culture that takes centre stage. Here Bradbury argues for the proverb’s ability to disrupt the hierarchy of wisdom; and yet, at the same time, reminds us that proverbs are ripe for abuse by antifeminist auctoritees. This chapter gives a helpful overview of the tale’s different genres, drawing out the elements of exemplum, confessio, sermon-joyeux, and fabliau that have been more widely discussed by Chaucer scholars. Bradbury, however, argues for “the importance of another underlying generic structure, the dialogue or debate in proverbs” (9). She argues that the “Wife of Bath’s Prologue” functions as a “proverb contest” (90), something Chaucer’s proverb-conscious premodern readers would have more easily identified. This point is nicely borne out by discussion of how readers and scribes of the Canterbury Tales actively engaged with the Wife of Bath’s proverbial wisdom in their annotations some time before Thomas Speght’s 1602 edition of Chaucer’s works, which employed manicules as proverb markers. Some useful discussion of proverb contests in Dives and Pauper and The Dialogue of Solomon and Marcolf reintroduces the Solomonic wisdom discussed in the previous chapter, the most significant Solomonic proverb being that refuted by Proserpina in “The Merchant’s Tale”: “Amonges a thousand men yet foonde I oon, | But of women alle foond I noon” (2246-48). Bradbury shows how this proverb is reconfigured in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” before working carefully through a series of other “proverb clusters” that are employed within the Tale.
Chapter four discusses Chaucer’s most proverb-heavy tale, “The Tale of Melibee.” Here, the issues modern readers face when engaging with premodern proverbs are central to the discussion. The modern distaste for proverbs is raised, as is the dissatisfaction expressed by Chaucer scholars in their discussions of “The Tale of Melibee.” Bradbury also notes how the overwhelming presence of the proverbs has left readers dissatisfied with the unnaturalistic storytelling, and that this is all the more pronounced when compared with tales told by the other Canterbury pilgrims: proverbs take on a jarring quality in a face-to-face storytelling scenario. Bradbury, however, posits that Melibee’s more frustrating features can be better understood if the tale were read as a proverb-collection. This reading is nicely borne out by discussion of how, in Albertanus’s Liber consolationis et consilii the story develops out of--and is secondary to--the all-important proverbs. An especially enjoyable moment in this chapter is the discussion of feminine allegorical figures beyond Chaucer. Bradbury compellingly argues that Prudence’s status as a wife “opens her to criticism more likely to be directed at a naturalistically portrayed fictional woman than an allegorical wisdom figure” (144). If read against the feminine wisdom figures of Boethius and Christine de Pizan, we see how Prudence’s instruction operates on multiple levels. She embodies the virtues of a personified cardinal virtue whilst engaging in a practise of wifely diplomacy that has recognisable appeal to a fourteenth-century audience. It is these moments that bring to life the premodern engagement with proverbs that is now lost to the modern reader.
This study ran the risk of producing the same sorts of problems posed by the proverb. As I mention above, there is a lot of material here, drawn from nearly all of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Where Bradbury succeeds in making this level of engagement with Chaucer’s proverbs digestible--and enjoyable--is the reassuring emphasis on how the proverb is a difficult beast to handle.Its black-and-white nature can create unhelpful binaries; its ability to be misused and abused attests to the power the proverb wields; and the diverse responses proverbs attract can make it difficult to extract a single, recognisable meaning. However, this complexity opens up the proverb as a space of possibility.Drawing from a proverb found in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” “taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille” (171), Bradbury concludes this study by contending that proverbs propose meanings that “readers and hearers are free to accept, discard, or modify” (171). Rival Wisdoms shines a light on the “transformational powers” of the proverb, and will be a valuable resource to Chaucer scholars.
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Note:
1. Archer Taylor, The Proverb (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1931).