Troilus And Criseyde Character Analysis

In both Parliament of Fowls and Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer employs narrators who serve as characters within the texts, a narrative invention credited to him. Although these characters are initially presented as first person narrators, their influence and roles in the text frequently varies, and they often operate in repeatedly fluctuating ways. When combined with a reversal of observational and personal action, Chaucer is able to continually manipulate the expectations of even modern readers familiar with character narrations. And while presented as complete tales, the narrators are shown as helpless and the poems maintain a lingering sense of incompleteness, reminding readers that Chaucer, the author, is in the position of power.

These two works present the development of a narrator, and in many ways, the narrator of Troilus and Criseyde can be seen as the maturing narrator of Parliament of Fowls. The narrator of the latter text is introduced as a man searching for an understanding of love, an emotion so complex that his consciousness is “astonyeth with his wonderful werkynge” (5). While love is certainly an intricate emotion, the narrator has unduly complicated his task: “The lyf so short, the craft so long to learne, / The ‘assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge, The dredful joye alwey that slit so yerne” (1-3). Rather than developing a clear, concise definition of love, the narrator presents a subject which only becomes clear when he explicitly states that he means love. Even in his waking hours the narrator is confused by his searches in old texts for understanding, which leaves his actions and efforts meaningless.

The ineptness and helplessness of the narrator in Parliament of Fowls is only further developed as the...

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... He urges his readers to “repeyreth hom fro worldly vanyte, / And of youre herte up casteth the visage / To thilke God…” (V. 1837-1839). Essentially, the narrator removes himself from the role of translator and becomes the interpreter of meaning.

In a translation, a detached third person narrator is expected. Chaucer writes an extremely objective first person narrator. In a dream sequence, readers expect to learn the inner thoughts and musings of a first person narrator, not receive an objective account of the mating of birds. The personal becomes observed and the observed becomes personal, and readers are left with a complex twist of narration that seems incomplete, reminding them to consider the author who created the poems. In swapping the expected behaviors and personas of his created narrators, Chaucer ultimately reserves the position of power for himself.