From Dorigen to the Vavasour: Reading Backwards

Author / Editor
Gaylord, Alan T.

Title
From Dorigen to the Vavasour: Reading Backwards

Published
Robert R. Edwards and Stephen Spector, eds. The Olde Daunce: Love, Friendship, Sex, and Marriage in the Medieval World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 177-200, 284-87 (notes).

Description
The controversy regarding "the moral intelligence of the narrator" of FranT maps the "poetic terrain" of the tale., i.e., rhyme, meter, poetic structure, and complex literary plan. Gaylord examines the tale by two complementary and yet contradictory methods: "reading forwards" ("unscrolling a text as if it were being complacently listened to") and "reading backwards" ("an activity of resistence: handling the book, releaving the progress of the narrative").

Alternative Title
Olde Daunce: Love, Friendship, Sex, and Marriage in the Medieval World.

Chaucer Subjects
Franklin and His Tale.