Beholding Violence: A Conference on Medieval and Early Modern Culture

One of the values of Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee is its reminder that beholding physical violence is only the first step in any violent act. Once the actual act of violence is over, the real work of beholding violence begins: how to respond as a community. In other words, to behold violence is to behold a community in a crucible. The response to violence by a community defines who it is. My play on the conference theme, “Beholding Patience,” alludes to the problem of when and how to respond to violence.

In this paper, I want to put Chaucer into dialogue with Michel Foucault’s posthumously published lecture Fearless Speech. Foucault’s examination of parrhesia provides a useful tool for examining for examining how violence between individuals affects the “common profit” of an entire community as well as the role of counsel in leadership during a time of violence crisis.

Fearless Speech examines the role of parrhesia (truth-telling in the face of danger) and its relation to the exercise of power. For Foucault, the worth of a person, including a monarch, is h/er ability to play the parrhesiastic game: “The man [sic] who exercises power is wise only insofar as there exists someone who can use parrhesia to criticize him, thereby putting some limit to his power, to his command” (29). Foucault’s discussion is bound with his interest in the “care of the self” and is a method for reaching a “new level of self-awareness” (133). The goal of a parrhesiastic struggle is for the person “to fight within himself against his own faults.” (133).

For example, Prudence counsels Melibee to remain patient in the face of violence rather than respond with further reactionary violence. Melibee dramatizes one of the essential crises of any act of parrheisa: the question of “who is entitled to use parrhesia” (72). Prudence’s struggle with Melibee to pay heed to the proper counselor (parrhesiast) is partly a struggle to remind him that his response to violence cannot be personal. Prudence’s lessons in parrhesiastic “care of the self” are ultimately intended to inculcate a new found “care of the community.” Her parrhesiastic games illustrate the way in which lessons in self-awareness can become lessons in communal awareness.



	William Christopher Brown (Associate Instructor, English, Indiana University, Bloomington) “Beholding Patience: The Parrhesia of Violence in Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee” One of the values of Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee is its reminder that beholding physical violence is only the first step in any violent act. Once the actual act of violence is over, the real work of beholding violence begins: how to respond as a community. In other words, to behold violence is to behold a community in a crucible. The response to violence by a community defines who it is. My play on the conference theme, “Beholding Patience,” alludes to the problem of when and how to respond to violence. In this paper, I want to put Chaucer into dialogue with Michel Foucault’s posthumously published lecture Fearless Speech. Foucault’s examination of parrhesia provides a useful tool for examining for examining how violence between individuals affects the “common profit” of an entire community as well as the role of counsel in leadership during a time of violence crisis. Fearless Speech examines the role of parrhesia (truth-telling in the face of danger) and its relation to the exercise of power. For Foucault, the worth of a person, including a monarch, is h/er ability to play the parrhesiastic game: “The man [sic] who exercises power is wise only insofar as there exists someone who can use parrhesia to criticize him, thereby putting some limit to his power, to his command” (29). Foucault’s discussion is bound with his interest in the “care of the self” and is a method for reaching a “new level of self-awareness” (133). The goal of a parrhesiastic struggle is for the person “to fight within himself against his own faults.” (133). For example, Prudence counsels Melibee to remain patient in the face of violence rather than respond with further reactionary violence. Melibee dramatizes one of the essential crises of any act of parrheisa: the question of “who is entitled to use parrhesia” (72). Prudence’s struggle with Melibee to pay heed to the proper counselor (parrhesiast) is partly a struggle to remind him that his response to violence cannot be personal. Prudence’s lessons in parrhesiastic “care of the self” are ultimately intended to inculcate a new found “care of the community.” Her parrhesiastic games illustrate the way in which lessons in self-awareness can become lessons in communal awareness.