Dorigen's Lament and the Resolution of the Franklin's Tale

Abstract

In a 1997 article in Chaucer Review, I argued that the Wife of Bath in her Prologue "defends the plain truth of Scripture against the polemics of St. Jerome, and adopts what is in essence an Augustinian position on marriage." 1 In this paper I extend my argument to the Franklin's Tale. In this tale, as in the Wife of Bath's Prologue, we have another instance of a passage of considerable length in which Chaucer causes a character to react to, and offer an implicit reply to, an argument from Jerome's Against Jovinian, this time relating to the virginity and marital relationships of pagan or pre-Christian wives. As in the case of the Wife of Bath's Prologue, our understanding of the function of Dorigen's Lament in its context will be greatly enhanced by a close study of how it relates to and softens the message of Against Jovinian, its principal model.

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