Smith, Warren. “Dorigen’s Lament and the Resolution of the Franklin’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review 36.4 (2004): 374-390

Warren Smith begins his article, “Dorigen’s Lament and the Resolution of the Franklin’s Tale“, by addressing the relation of Dorigen’s lament and an argument from Jerome’s Against Jovinian. Jerome’s first book of Against Jovinian depicts a variety of Biblical stories justifying his argument that chastity is the preferred choice of men and women in the Bible. Her lament offers or causes the character to react to and offer a implicit imply to the difference between virginity and marital relationships of pagan or pre-Christian wives. Smith argues that through the character of Dorigen, Chaucer takes a clear steer away from Jeromes’ position on marriage and virginity. “Chaucer focuses on the pagan exempla of the later chapters, in accordance with the occasional pagan or pre-Christian assumptions of the tale…This inconsistency is a clear example of irony or humor, but those who dismiss the Lament as a long-winded rhetorical exercise miss its more serious point, which becomes evident only in close comparison with its course” (Smith 375).Dorigen takes the rhetoric used in Jerome’s Against Jovinian and uses it in a more humane manner, paying closer attention to the distinction of right and wrong.

Smith begins with a rundown of Dorigen’s lament. She makes a rash promise to a man (Aurelius). Her husband, Averagus, has been away pertaining to his knightly duties and she wants him to return home. Dorigen asks Aurelius to remove the black rocks on the coast so he can safely return to her and in return will give Aurelius her undying love and affection. Upon Averagus’ return, Dorigen is in a situation in which she must maintain her promise to Aurelius while remaining true to her husband. She is faced with the decision as to whether or not suicide is a justifiable resolution to breaking her promise to Aurelius or shaming herself by committing adultery with him. Chaucer forces Dorigen to turn to examples of the virtue of a true pagan woman. “…In this instance, not so much mocking the examples as transforming them, giving them a lesson and a moral tone sympathetic to the women and disapproving of the violence of the men, human reactions for which one looks in vain in Jerome” (Smith 379).

Dorigen is now caught in a dilemma, which boils down to her facing Jerome’s choice between a loss of chastity or a loss of life. Dorigen refers to twenty-two examples. The first eleven are examples of women whose suicide is deplored because it resulted from the cruelty of their male oppressors, citing the story of the Thirty Tyrants and the story of the men of Messene. The last eleven examples are taken from Jerome, and surprisingly enough praise women for their outstanding love of their partners.

“As was the case with the changes Chaucer made from Bocaccio in describing Dorigen’s unselfish desire for removal of the rocks, so does he transform the tone of Dorigen’s complaint to make her consistently sympathetic with the suffering women of the examples and contemptuous of the violent men, thus reassuring us that her final decision about her fate will rest on a compassionate and morally upright basis” (Smith 384).

Smith concludes in stating that the use of Jerome’s Against Jovinian is necessary for the resolving of Dorigen’s dilemma. “Dorigen, forced to settle a moral dilemma which seems to present her with an impossible choice, turns to a document on the nature of female virtue which for all it’s buffoonery is unyielding and pitiless to the point of fanaticism on the subject of chastity” (Smith 386). Dorigen turns to a text that exemplifies chastity as the virtue of all women. Smith ends his argument by stating that Jerome’s “chamber of horrors” helps Dorigen to solve the moral dilemma she finds herself in towards the end of the Franklin’s Tale. Dorigen finds herself in a similar situation as the women in the examples she references in her lament.”In short, Dorigen’s Lament reveals her struggling toward a resolution of her dilemma which will keep her from suicide and preserve both her ‘trothe’ and her fidelity to her husband” (Smith 386).

I think the structure of Smith’s article, referencing Jerome’s Against Jovinian, works in successfully depicting Dorigen’s lament. However, I am not sure how Dorigen’s lament precisely pinpoints the difference between right and wrong. It seems that her decisions, although unselfish, leave her in a situation where here ultimate decision is wrong.

Smith also references that the examples Dorigen references in her lament help her to maintain truth and be true to her husband. Dorigen was not true to her husband. While he was away maintaining his knightly worth in order to remain worthy of his marriage to someone of higher birth, she was gaining the attentions she lacked from other men. She even goes as far as to promise her love to another man, although it was in regards to bringing her husband back, she still made the promise. Dorigen may not realize the importance of his hard work in maintaining his status, but it the same kind of work that got her to notice him and return his love in the first place.