‘Ysworn… Withoute gilt:’ Lais of Illusion-Making Language in the Canterbury Tales
This essay argues that Chaucer’s interest in the Breton lay rests on the power of the genre’s association of magic and language. Examining the Wife of Bath’s Tale, a story that shares features with the Breton lay but is not marked as such, with the Franklin’s Tale, a marked Breton lay that has its s...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Institut du Monde Anglophone
2014-04-01
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| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/230 |
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| Summary: | This essay argues that Chaucer’s interest in the Breton lay rests on the power of the genre’s association of magic and language. Examining the Wife of Bath’s Tale, a story that shares features with the Breton lay but is not marked as such, with the Franklin’s Tale, a marked Breton lay that has its sources in the Italian novelle, the essay clarifies Chaucer’s aim in calling the Franklin’s story a Breton lay. The Franklin’s inheritance from and attraction to the Breton lay appears in the tale as a conflation of illusion and reading; speaking, seeing, and fantasy, not as any reference to a particular story or plot. The essay thus also posits a different way of connecting the Wife’s tale to the Franklin’s beyond the debate about marriage that has so far dominated critical discourse about them. |
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| ISSN: | 1634-0450 |