Reading like a Clerk in the Clerk's Tale

Description: If reading is a transformative act, then Griselda's unwavering "reading" of Walter as a loving husband ultimately transforms him so that Walter's will conforms with hers. Thus, her association with the Clerk (especially as aligned against the Pardoner, who rejects the moral implications of his own tale) is apt. ClT demonstrates the moral power and importance of acts of interpretation, which can both find and plant good, even where no good was intended.