“THE BESTE GAME OF ALLE”: PLAYING CHESS WITH FORTUNE ...

Gerry Wolfson-Grande 1
I. Introduction
While the Knight’s Tale does not incorporate a direct chess metaphor, an analogy may be
made between its central themes and the game of chess, particularly when it is read in connection
with the Book of the Duchess. Both poems are based on love pursued and won, only to be lost
arbitrarily and capriciously despite the ordered environment in which they take place. In the
Book of the Duchess, this process is compared specifically to a chess game between two
individuals, the grieving Man in Black and the personification of fortune. The Knight’s Tale
increases the cast of characters, the playing field, and even the number of levels of the game,
wherein Fortune is not portrayed so much as a specific character but as an impersonal force
which influences the actions of gods and humans, and the struggle to impose order on disorder
plays out in both spheres as well. While there is no direct evidence that Chaucer may have
entertained such a premise, in effect, the Knight’s Tale can be viewed as a multi-dimensional
chess game played by primary and ancillary opponents on a variety of levels from the individual
and mundane to the cosmic.
II.
Chaucer and Chess
According to historian David Shenk, the game of chess is “a miniature reflection of
society” which has been used as a metaphor encompassing “everything from romantic love to
economics” for the entirety of its history. 1 In the Middle Ages, it was a part of the nobility’s
education (male and female), as well as an often illicit amusement among the religious orders,
despite frequent bans due to its association with gambling. By Chaucer’s day, several literary
works on chess had been published. He would have been familiar with at least two of them,
Jacobus de Cessolis’ Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobelium (“Book of the customs of
men and the duties of nobles”), or The Book of Chesse, and Jeu de Echecs by Jehan Vignay. 2