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In 1999, when I wrote the first version of the essay below for publication in Gesher,
the journal of the Victorian Council of Christians and Jews, I was reasonably satisfied with it.
It argued that George Orwell was wrong in accusing Geoffrey Chaucer of anti-semitic
statements in The Prioress’ Tale. I believed the arguments I put forward were compelling.
It was therefore with some disappointment that, during a formal dinner not long after, certain
representatives of the Jewish ultra-orthodox community raised the matter to express their
polite but firm disagreement. Chaucer was anti-semitic, full stop. Following discussion of
the issues and my brief reiteration of the main points of the essay, I was met with the fish-eye
and an “if you say so” response. I could fully understand why these guys had strong opinions
on such things, of course; but I thought I’d rubbed healing balm on at least one small lump.
I’d better tell you where I’m coming from. I’m a not very committed Catholic who
will dutifully recite the Apostles’ Creed at baptisms and the like, justifying my position by
reminding myself that the creed is but a document thrashed out by a committee to help
reduce feuding between various Christian factions. Sympathetic to survivors of the
Holocaust, I’d joined the council to help out, mainly to do the books. But I found the
involvement so rewarding I stayed on for several years in various capacities. It was a
stimulating experience in so many respects - the repercussions of the Holocaust, the
responses of the various Christian denominations, other inter- and intra-faith issues and
tensions, the enthusiasm of the Jewish artistic community, and Zionism, Israel, the whole
political thing. I learnt a lot, and generally it was an enriching experience.
But not all I found congenial. One thing which particularly annoyed me was the
widespread tendency, coming most noticeably from non-Jewish quarters, to blame the origin
and rise of anti-semitism - and its culmination in the Holocaust - essentially on the
Christians, especially Catholics. Some even labelled Hitler a Christian, for god’s sake. And
never mind the persecution of the Jews long before the rise of Christianity, under the
Hellenised Egyptians for example, and then the Romans.
Please don’t get me wrong on this. I am no wide-eyed choirboy, nor do I crave a
bishop’s mitre. I’m most disturbed by a whole raft of Vatican policies, including its “out of
sight, out of mind” practices for handling the many cases of child abuse, both sexual and
disciplinary, perpetrated for so long by the clergy and allied laity. I’m right behind Hans
Kung in all these things. I’m very much aware too of the deplorable role the church played,
through both liturgy and theology, in the dubious matter of presenting Jews as needful of
salvation through baptism. It’s just that I don’t think the Roman Catholic Church should be
blamed unfairly for things it didn’t do, and in some cases even tried to prevent happening.
Such as the persecution and killing of witches, and the killing of Jews for the “blood libel”.
Enough. At the outset a few things need to be said about George Orwell, whose
allegation of Chaucer’s anti-semitism sparked my essay. Orwell’s genius is undoubted; in
addition to his two great anti-ideology novels, he was the author of a good many brilliant
essays. Such as Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool, in which he demolished an essay by Tolstoy
which belittled Shakespeare. Orwell’s words were withering, exposing Tolstoy in this
instance as being narrow-minded, rigid, ungenerous and a twister. And, to cap it off,
apparently lacking in self-knowledge. Orwell himself was none of these things. But he too
had his faults, forever jumping to conclusions, and holding onto them like a terrier with a
tennis ball. As in his essay Boy’s Weeklies, in which, in an otherwise discerning (and as
always, entertaining) piece, he incorrectly asserts that the style of the Billy Bunter stories was
constructed so that any number of writers could readily imitate it, and take over as required
to meet the ever-recurring deadlines. To his credit, Orwell unequivocally admitted his error
as soon as it was pointed out. Sensible terriers eventually let go of their tennis balls. But as
soon as the next ball comes bouncing along ...
As for Chaucer, most of what I have to say about him in embedded in the essay itself.
His assured place in the canon of English literature owes essentially to two things - his role,
followed through mightily by Shakespeare two centuries later, in elevating English to a
literary language, and in the humanity he captured so fully in his works. As Jonson said of
Shakespeare, Chaucer too was “not of an age but for all time”.
So to my essay, augmented to help address the concerns expressed by sceptics the first
time around. Just as Orwell hastened to the defence of his esteemed Shakespeare, so do I
gird up again to defend Chaucer. I know I am pitting myself against a giant; like some
barefoot peasant pushed into a rightful cause, I march off to battle, pitchfork in hand.
*****
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