'She Should Have Said No to Walter': Griselda's Promise in 'The Clerk's Tale'

Author / Editor
Finnegan, Robert Emmett.

Title
'She Should Have Said No to Walter': Griselda's Promise in 'The Clerk's Tale'

Published
English Studies 75 (1994): 303-21.

Description
Examines implications of Griselda's problematic promise of obedience (which she should have rescinded once she realized that it meant consent to the murder of her children) from the perspective of theologians and religious writers such as Aquinas and Wycliffe. Concludes with a study of "tempten," "assaien," and "assaillen."

Chaucer Subjects
Clerk and His Tale.
Language and Word Studies.