Defining Heroism in Geoffrey Chaucer's the Legend of Good Women and Other Dream Visions

The Legend of Good Women is a long poem consisting of ten stories of legendary women, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. The poem is a dream vision in which the author falls asleep and is rebuked by Cupid, a God of love for his previous work, Troilus and Criseyde. Endeavoured to right his wrongs in these passages, Chaucer set out to write a text, which would praise several notable women of history. Many of the women in the poem are given extraordinary human characteristics like faithfulness, generosity, love, passion, spiritual devotion, fidelity and empathy. The male characters are mostly vilified, for leaving behind the potentialities of love with these women, or for performing cruel attacks upon these women. Described throughout as knights, the men do not behave according to the rules of courtly love and instead the women pursue men, in tragic fashion. The women are lifted up and put on a pedestal by Chaucer, but love continues to betray them, specifically in the legends: Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle and Medea, Lucrece, Ariadne, and Philomela. These female characters are also mentioned as heroines in The Parliament of Fowls, but less so in the Book of the Duchess. The women in the stories play heroes seeking love, but love, like many Greek heroes and hubris, is their downfall. In some cases, this compilation of poems is significant for changing typical gender roles, in which the man is the pursuer. Instead, women pursue with their full hearts, to their own tragic ends. The Legend of Good Women is not only a story praising the positive qualities in women, but an example of the many sacrifices and risks women in reality and in literature take to experience love, if only briefly, or tragically. This brings the women in The Legend of Good Women to heroic status, where love is often absent.

According to Dorothy Willner in her feminist article on "The Oedipus Complex, Antigone, and Electra: The Woman as Hero and Victim." The female tragic hero is one who "passes from happiness to misery" (62). Willner continues: "the woman who is hero is not allowed also to be wife and mother" (62). This is the cycle that the central female characters follow in the text of The Legend of Good Women. They ascend to love: "as Cleopatra for to love and serve," (line 604) or: "al here compleynt of love and al here wo" (748). But their favour turns to tragedy, as seen in the Legend of Hypsipyle. Here the central female character is cursed by the Greek Gods and left by her lover Jason, with child. Love changes to misery, which makes this female character a tragic hero, or heroine. The legends do not end in marriage, which could create the potentiality of comedy, but in suicide or the longing for lost love. Their courageous pursuit of a lover is heroic. Yet, the results are unrewarding, as the men do not reciprocate their affections. This makes many of the women in The Legend of Good Women tragic heroes, who are worthy of praise but fallible.

As well, in each of the poems, the women heroes are equated with a central heroic quality, which defines heroines in general. In The Legend of Hypsipyle, Hypsipyle is matched with the quality of gentleness: "of gentil wemen, tender creatures," of good cheer "by hire array, by wordes, and by chere," and her graces: "and she tok hed, and knew by hyre manere" (1370-1504). In The Legend of Lucrece, Lucrece is described as chaste: "embellished hire wifly chastite" (1737). Ariadne is equated with kindness in the Legend of Ariadne: "but wickedly he quitte hire kyndenesse" (1918). Philomela is a hero of beauty:" beaute was she two so ryche" (2291). The heroic qualities of women are very different from that of men. Instead of qualities of adventure, brilliance in battle, or leadership as male Greek heroes, the women show gentler qualities, which leave them vulnerable to the male characters in the poem. This contrast puts the women in the role as the protagonist and the men on the side of the antagonist. Just as in many traditional male legends of Greek heroic tragedy, there is a battlefield, but the conflicted interaction takes place in the realm of love, for the women. Yes, the women and men do not battle physically in some instances, but through bonds, or the lack of bonds found in the sphere of love. The positive adjectives applied to the women by Chaucer put them on the side of moral right to such a degree that they are bound to fall. Thus, the women characters are tragic heroes, while the men fair even more poorly by becoming almost one-dimensional villains.

Of course, every hero must oppose a villain or an obstacle and in The Legend of Good Women there are plenty of antagonists, or harrowing situations to choose from. Lucrece faces a rapist and defiler in her story, while Hypsipyle encounters a womanizing and faithless man in Jason, of the Argonauts. Medea faces the same man, who betrays her in marriage. Ariadne helps the hero Theseus slay the Minotaur and her favour is returned by Theseus helping himself to Ariadne's sister. Philomela is also forcibly taken, muted and left to die by King Tereus. The list of objectionable male behaviours is only outdone by each woman's persistent view in the positive qualities of love. Each man is challenged to pursue love as faithfully as the woman, but in each case he runs away for the challenge, or acts cruelly. The men act in opposite to the rules of courtly love and in so doing make the women seem even more heroic, for their lack of positive qualities.

As Willner stated earlier, a heroic woman can not be a wife or a mother. In The Legend of Good Women, the reason the heroines cannot find love, is due to the absence of choosing the correct partner, or the denying of love by the man. Dido falls in love with the legendary Trojan hero Eneas, who settles in Carthage, after his defeat in Troy. Here, Dido's heroic qualities are that of being a huntress: "til at the laste he mette an hunteresse," (971) beauty "but she was yit the fayreste creature" (974) devoutness "ther Dido was in hire devocyoun" (1017) and many more. Yet, Eneas is described positively initially only as adventurous: "but of his aventures in the se" (953). Then, he is negatively described as mocking Dido for her positive qualities: "o sely wemen, ful of innocence,/ Ful of pite, of trouthe and conscience,/ What maketh yow to men to truste so? Have ye swych routhe upon hyre feyned wo" (1254-1257). He is also described as being unkind and mischievous. The qualities in Dido that he shuns are the very qualities that make her heroic. To be vulnerable in the face of love is sometimes tragic, but often rewarding. Eneas leaves her, however, and Dido ends her life, in tragic fashion. Many of the women face rejection or abandonment for loving these men and while the men remain living, it is the women who are taking the risk by offering their best to them.

A brief aside is necessary here to compare other dream visions by Chaucer to determine this author's views on women, in regards to heroism. In the Book of the Duchess, the Lady in White is also praised for her qualities: "whan thou toke my lady swete,/That was so fair, so frech, so fre" (483-484). Both Medea and Dido are mentioned in these passages as well. However, Dido is mentioned as a fool and not as a hero: "had Dydo, the queen eke of Cartage,/ that slough hirself for Eneas/ was fals - which a fool she was!" (732-734). The qualities for which Dido are praised for in The Legend of GoodWomen, are seen as weaknesses in the Book of the Duchess. However, the Book of the Duchess was written almost twenty years before The Legend of Good Women and Chaucer likely matured into seeing the heroism of the women in regards to love, later in his life. Medea is also scorned for murdering her children in a jealous rage: "by a good right as Medea was,/ that slough her children for Jasoun" (727-728). This view is in opposite to his to his praise of this character in The Legend of Good Women and one begins to wonder at the two very different approaches to the female characters. Yet, context must be taken into consideration as the author attempts to sway the Black Knight from thoughts of suicide, in regards to Medea and Dido in these passages. Dido and Medea are still seen as positive and heroic figures in The Parliament of Fowls, but much less so in the Book of the Duchess.

In The Parliament of Fowls Dido, Thisbe and Cleopatra are each mentioned for their devotion to love "and al here love, in what plyt they dyde" (294). The author promotes love or at least asserts further discussion of the topic: "that what love is, thow canst nouther seen ne gesse" (603). The women are seen as icons and as those truest to love and they are praised much like the heroic female characters in The Legend of Good Women. Thus, in the Book of the Duchess the heroic characters in The Legend of GoodWomen are used as negative examples of self-destruction, while in the second text they are characters to aspire to (for their devotion to love). The heroism of Dido, Thisbe and Cleopatra is repeated The Parliament of Fowls, as giving all for love is the ultimate endeavour. However, love can often have tragic consequences for the female characters.

Yet critics persist in stating that the female characters in The Legend of Good Women are not heroes, or heroines at all. In Carolyn A. Durham's article "Medea: Hero or Heroine?" she states that Medea is not in fact a tragic hero, because there are no "tragic heroes" (54). Durham argues that tragic heroes do not exist due to rectifiable social situations (54). However, the rape of Lucrece is not simply a rectifiable social situation, or an event that one simply gets over and Durham's comments on the subject are insensitive to the characters in The Legend of Good Women and to women in general. Thankfully, the shame of rape is outshone by Lucrece's devotion to her husband and family, through her dedication to love. Her choice to die as a martyr is a questionable one and an event that requires understanding, not a simple solution to a problem. Chaucer shows, with Lucrece, that sacrificing for love is the ultimate dedication to the subject and he repeats this notion with: "for she was of love so trewe" (1874). The female characters in The Legend of Good Women are tragic heroes for their devotion to love and for the challenging circumstances that lead them to, in some cases, self-destruction.

Durham softens her stand slightly in regards to Medea as a tragic hero, when she states: "that women characters who achieve heroic stature in tragedy necessarily reject their femaleness or participate in its devaluation" (55). However, the women do not act as men, nor as anti-female characters, in the passages. They are praised for their femaleness: "of gentil wemen, tender creatures," (1370) or seen as the best of nature's creations: "but she [Dido] was yit the fayreste creature" (975). Chaucer even places the women in non-stereotypical roles, such as Dido. She is both the ruler of Cartage and a huntress. Being a tragic female hero does not require the loss of one's own natural qualities, but devotion to love. Medea left her father and homeland for Jason, in an act of love. She is shown to be more devout to love than Jason: "but unwist of hire fader is she gon/ to Tessaly with Duk Jason hire lef" (1653-1654). Jason is described as a womanizer and very fallible in the realm of love: "to don with gentil women his delyt/ this is his lust and his felicite" (1587-1588). Medea's devotion to love is her own undoing, which leads to the tragic slaying of her children. Love incenses some of the heroines in Chaucer's The Legend of Good Women and this leads to their destruction.

The female characters in The Legend of Good Women are the most tragic of heroes, for they swear a loyal oath to their male partners, for love. Their devotion to love and vulnerability almost blinds them to the inadequacies of the men they have chosen. In other cases, terrible circumstances lead to questionable actions. But always, Chaucer describes the women as objects most worthy of the reciprocation of love, with traits of fidelity, kindness, gentleness, and mercy. However, the male characters almost act as a gender foil to the women, thus making the women in the poem seem unusually deserving of that which they desire. In two other dream visions, the Book of the Duchess and Parliament of Fowls, the characters Medea, Dido and Cleopatra are ambivalently written with disdain, or with positive qualities of devotion. The differences in the passages show a maturing in Chaucer's writing, as he sees the women more positively in The Legend of Good Women. His lines in this passage, show the potential tragedies that can befall someone pursuing love, but also that love is the most worthy of pursuit.

Works Cited

Benson, Larry D. "The Riverside Chaucer." The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F N. Robinson. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987. 385-630. Print.

Durham, Carolyn A. "Medea: Hero or Heroine?" Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 8.1 (1984): 54-59. Print.

Willner, Dorothy. "The Oedipus Complex, Antigone, and Electra: The Woman as hero and victim." American Anthropologist 84.1 (1982): 58-78. Print.