ORTAÇAĞ’IN MELEZ VE TAKLİTÇİ KİMLİKLERİ: GEOFFREY CHAUCER’IN CANTERBURY HİKAYELERİ’NDEKİ FRANKLIN KARAKTERİ

Year 2017, Issue: 37, 329 - 342, 22.06.2017

Nazan Yıldız

https://doi.org/10.21497/sefad.328609

Abstract

Geoffrey Chaucer’ın Canterbury Hikayeleri farklı sınıfları resmeden eşsiz hicviyle
Ortaçağ toplumunu her yönüyle ele alır. Hacılarını zamanın toplumsal, ekonomik
ve siyasal değişimlerine uygun olarak gerçekçi bir biçimde tasvir eden Chaucer’ın
Canterbury Hikayeleri’ndeki odak
noktalarından biri de yaşlı bir toprak sahibi olan Franklin karakterini
şekillendiren toplumsal hareketliliktir. Franklin’in portresi, toplumsal
hareketlilikten dolayı asil kanı olmaksızın sosyal statüsünü yükselten
tarihteki gerçek emsalleri gibi arada kalmışlıkla yoğrulmuştur. Asil kökenleri
olmayan köylü sınıfına mensup, zenginliğiyle toplumda yükselen Franklin, hem
önceki hem de şimdiki toplumsal statüsünün özelliklerini kendisinde
barındırarak Ortaçağ “üçüncü alanı”nda yaşam sürer. Tam anlamıyla ne asiller ne
de köylü sınıfına dâhil olan Franklin bir kimlik bunalımı içindedir ve
geleneksel üç sınıfa (ruhban sınıfı, soylular ve köylü sınıfı) dâhil olmayan
sonradan görmelerin oluşturduğu Ortaçağ “orta sınıf”ına mensuptur. Bu “orta
sınıf”a dâhil olan Ortaçağ insanları, üç sınıfa dayanan kesin hatlarla çizilmiş
Ortaçağ kimliklerinin kıyısında kendi alternatif kimliklerini geliştirirler.
Franklin bu bağlamda kendisine toplumda bir yer edinebilmek için toplumsal statüleri
kendisinden yüksek olan asilleri taklit ederek melez bir kimlik geliştirmek
zorunda kalır.  Bu çerçevede, bu makale
Ortaçağ’ın kabul gören köylü ve soylu sınıflarının kimlikleri arasında kalan ve
dinamik Ortaçağ toplumunda kabul görebilecek bir kimlik arayan Chaucer’ın Canterbury Hikayeleri’indeki Franklin
karakterini Bhabha’nın dile getirdiği anlamda melez ve taklitçi bir kimlik
olarak ele alır.

Keywords

Chaucer’ın Franklin karakteri, melezleşme, Ortaçağ’ın üç sınıf kavramı, taklitçilik, üçüncü alan

MEDIEVAL HYBRID AND MIMIC IDENTITIES: GEOFFREY CHAUCER’S FRANKLIN IN THE CANTERBURY TALES

Abstract

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The
Canterbury Tales represents every facet of medieval society by its unique
satire of medieval people exhibiting various classes. Depicting his life-like
pilgrims in accordance with the social, economic and political changes of the
time, one of the focal points Chaucer highlights in his The Canterbury Tales is social mobility which moulds the portrait
of his old landowner, the Franklin. Due to social mobility, as in the case of
his real counterparts in history, the portrayal of the Franklin is shaped by in-betweenness
since he is a social climber without a noble birth. The Franklin, a rich social
climber of peasant origin, embraces the characteristics of both his previous
and present social position and inhabits a medieval “third space.” Not entirely
belonging to the nobility or to the commoners, parvenu Franklin is in an
identity crisis and belongs to the medieval “middle grouping” of social
climbers apart from the members of the traditional three estates: the clergy,
the nobility and the commoners. Those people of “middle-grouping” develop their
alternative identities on the borders of the acknowledged identities of the
three medieval estates. Thereupon, the Franklin has to develop a hybrid
identity by mimicking his social superiors, the members of the nobility, to be
able to find a place for himself in society. Accordingly, this paper aims to
discuss Chaucer’s Franklin in The
Canterbury Tales as a Bhabhanian hybrid and mimic who is caught in between
the medieval acknowledged identities of the commoners and the nobility, and
searches for a recognisable identity in dynamic medieval society.

Keywords

Chaucer’s Franklin, hybridity, medieval estates, mimicry, third space

References

• ABRAM, Annie (2013). English Life and Manners in the Later Middle Ages. Oxon: Routledge.
• ASHCROFT, Bill, GRIFFITHS, Gareth et al (1998). Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies. London and New York: Routledge.
• BAILEY, Mark (2014). The Decline of Serfdom in Late Medieval England: From Bondage to Freedom. Woodbridge: Boydell.
• BHABHA, Homi K. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
• BISHOP, Morris (1971). The Penguin Book of the Middle Ages. Norwich: Fletcher and Son.
• BISSON, Lillian M. (1998). Chaucer and the Late Medieval World. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• BLOCH, March (2007). Feodal Toplum. Trans. Melek Fırat. İstanbul: Kırmızı.
• BLOCKMANS, Wim, & HOPPENBROUWERS, Peter (2014). Introduction to Medieval Europe, 300-1500. New York: Routledge. 2nd ed.
• BOEHMER, Elleke (1995). Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• BROWN, Peter, & BUTCHER, Andrew (1991). The Age of Saturn: Literature and History in the Canterbury Tales. Oxford: Blackwell.
• BRYANT, Joseph A. (1948). “The Diet of Chaucer’s Franklin”. Modern Language Notes. 63 (5): 318-325.
• CARRUTHERS, Mary J. (1981). “The Gentilesse of Chaucer’s Franklin”. Criticism. (23): 283-300.
• CHAUCER, Geoffrey (2008). The Riverside Chaucer. ed. Larry Dean Benson. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• COLEMAN, Janet (1981). English Literature in History 130-1400: Medieval Readers and Writers. London: Hutchnson.
• COOPER, Helen (1996). Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales.Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2nd ed.
• COSS, Peter (2006). An Age of Difference. In Rosemary Horrox & W. Mark Ormrod (eds.). A Social History of England 1200-1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 31-73.
• DENHOLM-YOUNG, Noel (1969). The Country Gentry in the Fourteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• DYER, Christopher (1997). The Economy and Society. In Nigel Saul (ed.). The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England (pp. 137-173). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• DYER, Christopher (1989). Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England c. 1200-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• ECKHARDT,Caroline D. (1990). “Chaucer’s Franklin and Others of the Vavasour Family”. Modern Philology . 87 (3): 239-248.
• EROL, Burçin (1981). “A Pageant of Well-dressed People: A Study of Chaucer’s Costume Imagery in the Canterbury Tales”, Diss. Ankara: Hacettepe University.
• FORGENG, Jeffrey L., & MCLEAN, Will (2009). Daily Life in Chaucer’s England.Westport: Greenwood Press. 2nd. ed.
• FRANKIS, P. J. (1990). “Chaucer’s Vavasour and Chrétien de Troyes”. In Caroline, D. Eckhardt (ed.). Chaucer’s General Prologue to Canterbury Tales: An Annoted Bibliography, 1900-1984. Toronto: Toronto University Press. 46-47.
• GEROULD, Gordon H. (1926). “The Social Status of Chaucer’s Franklin”. PMLA. (LXI): 262-279.
• GIVEN-WILSON, Chris (1996). The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages: The Fourteenth-Century Political Community. London and New York: Routledge.
• HOMANS, George C. (1975). English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century. New York: WW Norton & Co.
• HOWARD, Donald. R. (1997). “Social Rank in the Canterbury Tales”. In Don Nardo (ed.). The Canterbury Tales. San Diego: Greenhaven Press. 84-90.
• HUIZINGA, Johan. (2013). The Waning of the Middle Ages. Mineola and New York: Dover Publications.
• HUSSEY, Maurice (1967). Chaucer’s World: A Pictorial Companion: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• KALPAKLI, Fatma (2011). “The Impact of Colonialism upon the Indigenous and the English Women Characters in the Mimic Men”. Pamukkale University Journal of Social Sciences Institute. (8): 77-84.
• KEEN, Maurice (1990). English Society in the Later Middle Ages 1348-1500. London: Penguin.
• KEEN, Maurice (2003). England in the Later Middle Ages: A Political History. London and New York: Routledge. 2nd. ed.
• KNAPP, Peggy (1990). Chaucer and the Social Contest. New York and London: Routledge.
• LARSON, Peter L. (2006). Conflict and Compromise in the Late Medieval Countryside: Lords and Peasants in Durham, 1349-1430. New York: Routledge.
• MANN, Jill (1973). Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• MCDOWALL, David (1989). An Illustrated History of Britain. Essex: Longman.
• MCKISACK, May. (1959). The Fourteenth Century: 1307- 1399. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
• MORTIMER, Ian (2009). The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. New York: Touchstone.
• MYERS, Alec (1978). England in the Late Middle Ages. London: Penguin Books.
• OLSON, Paul (1986). The Canterbury Tales and the Good Society. Princeton and New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
• PEARSALL, Derek (1985). The Canterbury Tales. London: George Allen & Unwin.
• PHILLIPS, Helen (2000). An Introduction to The Canterbury Tales: Reading, Fiction, Context. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• POSTAN, Michael (1972). The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain 1100-1500. Berkeley: California University Press.
• RIGBY, Stephen (2007). English Society in the Later Middle Ages: Deference, Ambition and Conflict. In Peter Brown (ed.). A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture c. 1350- c. 1500. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 25-39.
• ROBERTSON, Durant (1963). A Preface to Chaucer. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• ROBERTSON, Durant (1980). Essays in Medieval Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• SAUL, Nigel (1983). “The Social Status of Chaucer’s Franklin: A Reconsideration”. Medium Aevum. (52): 10-26.
• SAUL, Nigel (1992). “Chaucer and Gentility”. In Barbara Hanawalt (ed.). Chaucer’s England: Literature in Historical Context. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. 41-55.
• SAUL, Nigel (1997). The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• SAUL, Nigel (2011). Chivalry in Medieval England. Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• SCHOFIELD, Phillipp R. (2003). Peasant and Community in Medieval England, 1200-1500. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• SEMBLER, Mauer (1996). “A Frankeleyn was in his Compaignye”. In Laura C. & Robert T. Lambdin (eds.). Chaucer‘s Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales. Westport: Praeger. 135-145.
• SENAPATİ, Suganthi (2002). “Men and Women in the Merchant’s, Franklin’s and Wife of Bath’s Tales”. MA thesis. Houston: University of Houston Clear Lake.
• SPEECHT, Henrik (1981). Chaucer’s Franklin in the Canterbury Tales: The Social and Literary Background of a Chaucerian Character. Copenhagen: Copenhagen University Press.
• STENTON, Frank (1961). The First Century of English Feudalism: 1066-1166. London: Oxford University Press.
• STROHM, Paul (1986). “The Social and Literary Scene in England”. In Piero Boitani & Jill Mann (eds.). The Cambridge Chaucer Companion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1-16.
• STROHM, Paul (1989). Social Chaucer. Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• TUCHMAN, Barbara W. (1978). A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. New York: Ballantine Books.
• TURNER, Marion (2006). “Politics and London Life”. In Corinne Saunders (ed.). A Concise Companion to Chaucer. Oxford: Blackwell. 13-33.
• YILDIZ, Nazan (2015). “Hybridity in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: Reconstructing Estate Boundaries”. Diss. Ankara: Hacettepe University.