The Cecilia Legend as Chaucer Inherited It and Retold It: the Disappearance of an Augustinian Ideal

Description: The eldest version of the Cecilia story is the "Passio S. Caeciliae," extant mss of which date from the eighth century. Its central meaning involves an ideal of perfection close to Augustine's teachings. Chaucer translates the version of the story from the "Legenda aurea" up to about line 344, where he changes his source to the longer "Passio"--which, instead of translating, he abridges.; Jacobus had emphasized supernatural power at the expense of human understanding and choice. Chaucer goes even further than Jacobus in eliminating material from the "Passio" that affirmed the value of human nature and earthly experience. The tale thus loses its Augustinian perspective and assumes an increasing theological pessimism.; Perhaps Chaucer, like Jacobus, but unlike Augustine, visualized grace as abolishing nature, not raising and perfecting it.

Chaucer Subjects: Second Nun and Her Tale.; Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.