Chaucer and Medusa: The 'Franklin's Tale'

Author / Editor
Shoaf, R[ichard] A[llen].

Title
Chaucer and Medusa: The 'Franklin's Tale'

Published
Chaucer Review 21 (1986): 274-90.

Description
Behind FranT is the "Inferno," cantos 9-10--the cantos of the heretics, especially the Epicureans, and of Medusa. The teller's epicureanism prevents him from probing beneath the letter to the spirit. Likewise, his Dorigen is "astoned" (astonished, turned to stone) by a "monstre" (Medusa; FranT 1338-45).

Chaucer Subjects
Franklin and His Tale.
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.