Freud, the Clerkes Tale, and Literary Criticism.

Description: Argues that the main characters of ClT "have Oedipal fixations": Griselda, a masochistic form that correlates with "an incestuous quality in her relationship with her father," and Walter, a sadistic version that reverberates with the Cupid/Psyche myth, with a "conflict between his desire and dread of incest," and with his morbid fear of death. In psychoanalytic terms, both are compulsive neurotics, and in staging his second, mock marriage, Walter is "abreacting" and beneficially returning Griselda to the "point of her childhood fixation."