Romance Logic: The Argument of Vernacular Verse in the Scholastic Middle Ages [PhD thesis]

510 Pages·2009·1.86 MB·English

by  Wesley Chihyung Yu

ROMANCE LOGIC
The Argument of Vernacular Verse in the Scholastic Middle Ages

Wesley Chihyung Yu

A DISSERTATION
PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY
OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE
OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE
BY THE DEPARTMENT OF
ENGLISH

Advisers: Kathleen Davis, John V. Fleming, D. Vance Smith

April 2009
UMI Number: 3350843

Copyright 2009 by
Yu, Wesley Chihyung

All rights reserved

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iii
Abstract

Courtly literature is a surprising index of language’s changing theorization during an
important period for developments in Western logic. This dissertation characterizes the
changing functions of rhetoric and poesy vis-à-vis the arc of dialectic’s fortunes between the
twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Romance Logic discusses not only how vernacular romance
in the medieval tradition utilized and coincided with the logic of its contemporary moment,
but also argues that romance helped shape logic’s transformation through the Middle Ages.
Focusing largely on oddities of narrative construction, this project investigates the properties
of reasoning that are evident in vernacular verse and rhetorical arrangement over the long
period from dialectic’s reign as the principal logic of the early Middle Ages to the emergent
new logic in later Scholasticism.
Part I, “The Idea of Logic,” deals with the implications of dialectic as the basis of early
logic. Chapter 1 discusses the centrality of the Aristotelian syllogism in early medieval
thought, while Chapter 2 accounts for rhetoric’s accommodation of aspects of signification
that escaped dialectic. In Part II, “Logic and the Enchanting World,” the tradition of
vernacular romance gives a shape to the flexibilities of reasoning that could not be
categorically systematized under dialectic alone. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 center on Wace’s
Roman de Rou, and Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec et Enide and Yvain. Here, romance features as
a realm for imagining and assuaging various problems incurred by metaphysics and language
philosophy of the period, dramatizing and thereby actively preserving narrative complexity.
Seeing in rhetoric and poetry critical elements of rational thought, romance argues the
need for a metaphysical logic that can also accept complex and circumstantial information.
Part III, “Escaping Logic,” thus examines forms of narrative reasoning in later Scholasticism
that coincided with the transition to the era of the New Logic. These chapters explore poetic
iv
composition vis-à-vis the emerging logic of consequences that absorbed narrative
contingencies into its framework as dialectic’s ambivalent status in later Scholasticism led to
dialectic’s identification with rhetoric. Chapter 6 pursues the alternately dialectical and
rhetorical lives of transsumptio, and finds transsumptio to be an expression of both logical
change and narrative reasoning in the poetic manuals of Matthew of Vendôme and Geoffrey
of Vinsauf. Chapter 7 recovers Chaucer’s attention to the propositional logic of the
fourteenth century, showing how his ironic poesy recognized contemporary changes in logic
in order to build upon the foundation of philosophical thought that had been prevalent in an
earlier tradition of romance.
v
Acknowledgments

The most difficult debt to pay must be the one that can be remitted only with gratitude.
While trying to finish this dissertation, I have indebted myself a hundred times over in this
meager currency, having so copiously received far profounder things as kindness, patience,
enthusiasm, time, and inspiration from family, friends, and teachers. I can’t see how these
could possibly be repaid in either a few or many words, but I make a humble start here.
If we are drawn to those in whom we see the hope of our becoming better than we are,
then there seems little question as to why my choice of teachers has been what it has been.
Thanks must go to my advisers for their virtuously long fuse, and for directing me where I
have so desperately needed to go. Kathleen Davis, who drew me into the orbit of the early
Middle Ages, also drew me into wider academic circles to help facilitate my professional
growth. An incisive reader, an exciting thinker, and a wise counselor, she is above all
brilliantly humane. I could thank John Fleming for the conversations over lunch, for his
gentle support, for going to Kalamazoo when he could so easily have refused, and for
prevailing upon me to remember the unique work of poems. But chiefly, I thank him for
considering me a student of his. D. Vance Smith has an enormous capacity to guide students
into new realms of thought just by the touch and go of a conversation. I found a way to
medieval logic in his seminars, and in the midst of preparing job talks and finishing this
dissertation, I realized that I’d embarked unknowingly on this course of research in order to
feel at home in Vance’s books.
Without a course on premodern rhetoric under the frenetic, expansive, and awe-inspiring
tutelage of Rita Copeland, I would have missed out on a massive and daunting arena of
exploration. Her course, her scholarship, and her conversation have provided me access to a
world of texts I thought I was too old ever to embark upon. Diana Fuss offered not only good
professional advice over the years, but also much food for thought on those liminal rides on
the NJ Transit. I’m reminded by her example what value there is in remaining curious, and
am encouraged to remember the strength there is in asking questions. I started on a mind-
bending, dissertation adventure because of Steven Goldsmith at Berkeley—a brief but life-
altering chat some time in 1995 did the trick. And I am supremely grateful, as they so well
know, to Bruce Holsinger and Elizabeth Robertson for ushering me into the world of
medieval ideas.
My thanks to other professors and administrators who generously answered questions,
read papers, wrote letters, allowed me to sit in on their classes, assiduously approved
documents, shared wisdom, and let me bask in their comforts over coffee, vittles, or second-
hand smoke: April Alliston, Oliver Arnold, Dan Blanton, Jeremy Braddock, Marina
Brownlee, Patricia Dailey, Jeff Dolven, Craig Dworkin, Jane Garrity, Bill Gleason, Pat
Guglielmi, Jeremy Green, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Robert Hollander, Kelly Hurley, William
Jordan, Sarah Kay, Stacy Klein, John Logan, Karen Mink, Hal Momma, Jeff Nunokawa,
Calvin Normore, Sally Poor, Peggy Reilly, Jim Richardson, Marcia Rosh, Don Skemer, Nigel
Smith, Susan Stewart, Benj Widiss, and Susan Wolfson.
My good friends and colleagues made it so much easier to pass the years of writing with
their great intellectual support and wonderful friendship: J. K. Barrett, Roger Bellin, Hall
Bjørnstad, Tom Boeve, Sara Brooks, Katherine Brown, John Bugg, James Byrne, Sarah
Chartock, Leo Coleman, Josh Derman, Nadia Ellis, Jamie Fumo, Alberto Galindo, Shellie
Garceau, Guy Geltner, Erica Gilles, Josh Gold, Asya Graf, Rex Hatfield, Abby Heald, Ingrid
Horrocks, Aaron Hostetter, Jennifer Houle, Andrew Hui, Reggie Jackson, Jennifer Jahner,
Hannah and Eric Johnson, Ena Jung, David and Lisa Koo, Gina Kwun, Jennifer W. Leung,
vi
Jenni Lim, Jana Mathews, Dan Moss, Alex Neel, Mary Noble, Juliet O’Brien, Rebecca
Rainof, Harold Ramdass, Erwin Rosinberg, Stephen Russell, Surbhi Sharma-Martin,
Jacqueline Shin, Nicole Smith, Kimberly Stern, Yael Sternhell, Jamie Taylor, Natasha
Tessone, Dave Urban, Stefan Vander Elst, Sonia Velazquez, Keri Walsh, Eric Yellin, and
Laura Zawadski.
Wherever there was an adventure to be had and an idea to be turned over in its midst,
Gerard Passannante has been a most rare and well-loved fellow traveller. In his kinship of
imagination, I have found unspeakable enlightenment through many a mishap. Whether
under layers of antiquity in a Roman basilica, or on the road somewhere northward,
surprisingly the frontiers keep opening out in front of us.
Thank you, Charles, for being a source of such deep, childhood comfort, and for being a
remarkably capable reader of my work. In so many ways do our divergent paths seem
consistently to meet in the same vision of the world.
Two notable events in my family’s history will always remain with me as I think about
how this dissertation came to a close: the unfortunate passing of our 고모 in the fall of 2008,
and the imminent arrival of a niece in the spring.
I dedicate this dissertation to my beloved, hard-working parents, Henry and Pearl.
vii
Table of Contents

Abstract iii

Acknowledgments v

Introduction 1

Part I. THE IDEA OF LOGIC

Chapter One
The Speculations of Grammar: Term Logic, Etymology,
and Grammatical Humanism in the Middle Ages 21

Chapter Two
Outside the Syllogism: Problems in Medieval Argumentation 84

Part II. LOGIC AND THE ENCHANTING WORLD

Chapter Three
Frontier of Non-Sense: Discovery and the
Limits of Procession in Wace’s Roman de Rou 160

Chapter Four
The Recalcitrance of Enide: Topical Invention and the
Macrobian Arts of Description 228

Chapter Five
A Game of Predicables: Toward a Semantical Poetics in Yvain 281

Part III. ESCAPING LOGIC

Chapter Six
Transumptive Space: Old Words Rendered New 351

Chapter Seven
The Consequences of Romance: Modal Circles and
Chaucerian Style 412

Conclusion
The Dimensions of Rhetoric: Literary Form and the Anticipation of Analytic 469

Abbreviations 485

Bibliography 486
1
Introduction

“There are many resources in an Aristotelian tradition: when an object
escapes knowledge, dialectic remains.”
—Paul Vignaux, Philosophy in the Middle Ages

“Qu’est-ce donc pour moi, la Sémiologie? C’est une aventure, c’est-à-dire ce
qu’il m’advient (ce qui me vient du Signifiant).

For me, then, what is Semiology? It is an adventure, that is to say that which
befalls me (that which comes upon me from the Signifier).
—Roland Barthes, L’aventure semiologique

A romance hero in the medieval tradition came into being as the causal distribution of
epic-style adventures accumulated toward the merit of his heroic name; but these adventures
often brought the hero into contact with a variety of implausible or contradictory
happenstances along the way. Relegated to spatial puzzles, struggles against mythical
obstacles, and interior dilemmas expressed in hesitation and doubt, these spectacular mishaps
propel a narrative forward by pretending, at times, to regress. Scholars such as Tony Hunt,
Sarah Kay, and Eugene Vance have demonstrated that this game of incremental progress
possesses the character of dialectical thought intimating the crisis of evolving subjects in
courtly literature. Through scenarios of opposition and agreement, the synthesis of contrasts
forms a complex, dialectical artifact which we call a narrative. Narrative is, thus, a gentle
label for something more polemical; for the hypothetical nature of narrative inquiry and its
compounding ordered parts are a complex proposition that has been defamiliarized as a
proposition at all. Odd as it may seem, then, the history of logic offers a way to rethink
medieval romance as a genre.
A difficulty that prevents the study of logic from informing the study of romance more
directly has to do with the objectives of each as we construe them today. Logic seeks to
itemize what can be said to be true; romance is consciously and overwhelmingly fanciful,
2
written, as Chrétien de Troyes himself would profess, by liars.1 Prevailing attempts to think
about the genre of romance and its history, in fact, tend to focus on defining the nature of
medieval “fictionality.”2 As a result, a strong emphasis tends to fall upon the false
imaginings of romance, its capacity for untruth. On the flip side of the fictional, however, are
the parameters by which truth could be determined, a preoccupation for Scholastic thinkers
throughout the Middle Ages. What calls so deeply to the human senses through the
fabrication of experiential fictions, whether in poems or novels, is, in fact, the resonant
truthfulness of the literary, a strain of veracity that was itself the preoccupation of medieval
romances, too.
Where truth and untruth must often give equal and supplementary consent to a common
end (i.e., what is or is not “true”), that which emerges between them is troublingly vague.
David Oderberg writes,
logic is a tool for truth, and since truth is about being, logic must in this sense be
metaphysical. But since logic can be applied to fairies and phantoms as much as to
bed knobs and broomsticks, we cannot say that logic must be about what is.3

The logic of subjects and predicates (or, term logic) was the prevailing logic of the Middle
Ages, and with this brief insight into the fortunes of term logic, Oderberg gestures toward the
very difficulty that lay at the heart of medieval language philosophy. This difficulty involved
the ancient relationship that metaphysics shared with language itself that wondered whether
the analysis of language (of its syntactic and semantic units) could also reliably reflect back
to premodern thinkers a knowledge of the cosmos. Could language—the marker of man’s
uniqueness, his rationality—lead toward a knowledge of the next dimension of being? While

1 At the end of Yvain, ou le chevalier au lion, Chrétien inadvertently implicates himself in the proliferation
of romances which he attributes to liars.
2 For instance, D. H. Green, The Beginnings of Medieval Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002; and Païvi Mehtonen, Old Concepts and New Poetics: Historia, Argumentum and Fabula in the
Twelfth- and Early Thirteenth-Century Latin Poetics of Fiction. Helsinki, Finland: Societas Scientiarum
Fennica, 1996.
3 David Oderberg, “Predicate Logic and Bare Particulars,” in The Old New Logic:Essays on the Philosophy
of Fred Sommers, ed. David S. Oderberg, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005) 183.