Examining this complex literary structure, one can distinguish varying perspectives or traditions of love, beginning with the expression of courtly love by the Knight and a later follow through by the Squire. Their perspective of love follows the tradition of Troubadour poets of Southern France in the eleventh century, with the notion that true love can only exist outside of marriage; that true love may be idealized or spiritual, and may exist without ever being physically consummated; and that a man becomes the servant of the lady he loves. Thus the entrance of Arcite and Palamon in the Knight’s tale, where Emelyn becomes the elevated goal of their affection, and each lover laments of their state, Arcite in Boethian style against Fortune because he cannot see Emelyn, “To love my lady, whom I love and serve”, and Palamon blames Saturn for his imprisonment for he cannot see Emelyn. Together, with these basic premises of love, are minor motifs in the tale which are representative of courtly love: Arcite suffers from “the loveris maladye/ of Hereos”, where love is such a torment and disease, which disrupts both his sleep and appetite, that he would seem scant recognizable; and the duel for Emelyn, "But for as muche thou art a worthy knyght / and wilnest to darreyne hire by bataille, / Have heere my trouthe; tomorowe I wol not faille”, where the lady has no choice by affection but rather is the gift of heroic chivalry, and the one who wins the eventual battle is Palamon, the one who truly loved her. At the end of the tale, Theseus expounds on the ‘fair cheyne of love’ Emelye must follow, that love is part of the natural order of the world and the only resolution is for Emelye to marry Palamon and find her happiness. This view is one edging on romantic idealism, where happiness is the natural state upon the achieiving or gaining of the maiden of the knight’s fancy, where the female is submissive and bound to the order and directions of the dominant male. The Miller’s Tale then shortly mocks this later on, whose drunken tale takes the knight’s idea of courtly love from a lower class’s point of view, whose love rivalry of Nicholas and Absalon parodies that of Palamon and Arcite. By satirizing the pretensions of long suffering courtly lovers by portraying Nicholas and Alisoun in a frank and graphic manner- Nicholas seduces Alisoun by grabbing her by her ‘queynte’. Absolon, the parish clerk, also represents a parody of the conventional courtly lover, he stays awake at night, plays the guitar, aspires to be Alisoun’s maid (reminding us of Palamon and Arcite), but his pains are rewarded with only a kiss on Alisoun’s anus and a fart from Nicholas. We see here a reversion of the same motifs of courtly love as presented by the Knight, a cynical representation of love portrayed as mere physical lust and desire, and social retribution for adultery is frustrated by wit and skepticism. However, the Miller’s Tale coming directly after the Knight’s Tale does remind us of the facts of common reality, presenting love as viewed from the eyes from the lower classes, reminding us that love represented in the Knight’s Tale is too idealistic and misplaced in reality.
This cynicism is further portrayed in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, where the Wife of Bath speaks of the ‘wo’ that is in marriage, and how she did not manage to gain actual satisfaction from love in any marriage, “For myn entente is nat but for to pleye”, her marriages for her had no actual emotional value, “That I ne tolde no deyntee of hir love”. Love for the Wife of Bath is secondary in relationships, and she takes a more practical and pragmatic view of love, demanding support from her husbands, describing her marriages in terms of business contracts, “my dettour and my thral”. She demands mastery in love, and even for her fifth husband which she admits she truly loved, he used violence on her, “And with his fist he smoot me on the heed”. And yet even as she brags about her shameless manipulation of her husbands and the control women must have over their husbands who will go astray, yet she admits to her romantic nature, and reveals a deep fondness for the one man she could not control. Love in this instance, is presented in a pessimistic light, with no actual compromise or everlasting satisfaction, a power struggle which one must maintain tirelessly to try to gain control over the household. Despite this, the last contradiction reveals a certain softness and belief in actual harmony in love, “I was to hym as kynde/ As any wyf from denmark unto ynde”, which hints that the later presentation of love in the Franklin’s Tale as mutual harmony is the actual ideal, a balance of both hope and practicality in a relationship which extols commitment and a compromise between husband and wife.
It is through the relationships then, through the characters’ actions and beliefs, that Chaucer explores the ideas of love. There is ‘Patient Griselda’ in the Clerk’s Tale – ‘patient’, derived from the Latin verb ‘to suffer’, which conjures up a picture of an unimaginably long suffering and obedient wife being cruelly tested by a calculating and perversely inventive husband. The tale’s stanzaic form of rhyme royal signals a tale of high moral, even religious sentence; its flat characterization and formulaic epitaphs distance Griselda from real people and lives. Griselda ‘wolde virtue plese’, and is so diligent that “She wought not been ydel, till she slepte.” True to this, Griselda never loses her serenity or patience towards her husband, even when he takes their baby daughter and two year old son, ostensibly to be killed; not when he sends her back disgraced in order to make a better marriage; not even when he brings her back when he is to receive his new bride. Love is thus associated with sacrifice and subservience, where poverty and strength to bear suffering is germane to the idea of love. In contrast, in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, the Wife demands mastery over her husband, “I have the power durynge al my lyf, upon his propre body, and noght he”, and sets out to claim power in the relationship. Love is depicted thus as a power struggle, with the usage of rhetorical and psychological factors to control the other party: Manipulation through guilt and blame “deceite, wepyng, spynnyng”, usage of stories and proverbs (the book of the 5th husband, and violence and victimhood (after Alisoun’s fifth husband has struck her out of guilt he resigns control over the house to her). Relationships here are teemed with lies and deceit, one where both parties are constantly in conflict to gain, love and marriage is distorted with feministic tones in the control house, the other extreme of the Clerk’s Tale. Chaucer thus expresses both extremes of love in relationships, and how their perspectives and beliefs permeate all aspects of their life and the way they relate to their partners.
This makes way for the entrance of the Franklin’s Tale, which demonstrates a balance in love and relationships, advocating a two-way relationship where patience, tolerance and humility are covenanted. Love is one of giving and compromise, where ‘maistre’ traditionally exercised by woman during courtship and by man in marriage is forsworn: Arveragus’s only reservation concerns the face the marriage puts to the outside world: “Save that the name of soverayntee that wolde he have for shame of his degree”. Love is also built on emotional truth and trust, Dorigen trusts her husband Arveragus with the truth, and in return he urges her to be true despite his suffering and even promises to still honour her and keep the deed a secret, “that folk of yow may demen harm or gesse”. Both parties are true and committed to each other, and even Dorigen does not hesitate to boldly declare, “I nevere been untrewe wyf in word ne werk”, within love there is the balance and commitment to each other which is deeper and holds true to the soul, and not merely the surface exhortations and actions towards the other party. This complements with the theory of Aristotle on love and relationships, where two sexes must come together not only physically, but also rationally; marriage is a kind of friendship, but the most important kind. Husband and wife ought to have distinct, complementary spheres of authority, the wife over internal management of the house, and husband over external relations. Both Dorigen and Arveragus serve as explicit examples of this exemplary relationship, showing the ideal of love to be built on mutual harmony and trust, or the inclusion of courtly love into marriage, posing a balance to the idealism of the Knight and the manipulative machinations of the Wife. Chaucer thus, through presenting us different angles of love in relationships, shows us the effect of one’s commitment and perspectives both within and out of marriage, giving a treatment of love which is not only thorough and balanced, but also justified.
Chaucer also examines the various motivations behind love, and through this highlights the superficiality of the love expressed in the Merchant’s and Wife of Bath’s Tale. January marries for ‘leveful procreacioun’, to fulfill his sexual needs, and the use of ‘scrit and bond/ feffed in his lond” describes their relationship on the basic of monetary and business terms, the marriage is merely a business contract where May cannot refuse because of her poverty. Damyan’s relationship with May later is also merely one of physical lust, one fraught with lies and deceit. The metaphor of blindness, where January is not only literally blind but also blind to the flagrant adultery of his wife and his own frailty, also makes a statement of morality, he is blind to the superficiality of his own relationship and on what vulnerable terms it stands on, that May turns to the squire without hesitating to fulfill her own needs. When love harbours on such considerations, it is a selfish love, one which does not consider the other person’s needs and emotions, demonstrated in the way May is silent throughout her wedding feast, her silence hints at her lack of a voice to consent or reject the relationship. Similarly in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, the relationship is also described as monetary bondage, “I wolde ne lenger in the bed abyde/ till he had maad his raunsoun unto me” with both parties owing a debt to the other in love. Chaucer thus reveals the actual reasons for marrying and love of the characters, and in doing so we realize how little the marriage actually hinges on, and how love becomes secondary and monetary and lust become the primary factor in a relationship.
Lastly, Chaucer also introduces the element of religious love, but in doing so makes us realize the characters’ exhortations are not the absolute. In the Second Nun’s Tale, the legend of Cecilia, who requests to be a virgin in marriage to be faithful to the ‘aungel that loveth me’ and through her life, converts not only her husband and brother, but also the officials who were charged to execute her, with her constant exhortation in faith, “Gooth to the corone of lif that may nat faille”. For the Prioress’s Tale, the ‘litel clergeon’ is so faithful to the virgin that even in his death he is still ‘syngynge his song alway’, after his brutal murder by the Jews, the story demonstrating a religious love which is perseverant even in death, and even the Man of Law’s Tale exemplifies unwavering faith. However, such religious love often hinges on the excess, and even the Prioress’s passionate adoration of the Virgin Mary and her violent hatred of the Jews may indicate a crude and undeveloped religious sensibility. Such religious elements inserted into the discussion expand the scope of the discussion of love and extends the meaning and impacts of such a love.
In conclusion, Chaucer’s treatment of love is both complex and expansive, covering various perspectives and motivations within and out of relationships, and addressing both the political and domestic spheres and the rational differences in their attitudes of love. It is difficult to claim that any one view of love was preferred to the other, especially in a case where we have to look at the underlying context and meaning of each character’s voluminous exhortations, and not merely take it as the absolute truth. However one can say that Chaucer did give room to the woman’s point of view and stand on love more considerably than poets of his time, and to give such treatment to such a wide diversity of women is quite remarkable. In structuring the main marriage debate to end with the Franklin’s Tale, Chaucer assigns the balanced conclusion, of love to be based on mutual harmony, to smoothen out the extremes phrased by the various speakers, and through a variety of literary devices like irony, or usage of Biblical examples, extends the discussion of love and throws forth questions and dilemma which make for an interesting study and analysis.