Whit was his berd as is the dayesye;
Of his complexioun he was sangwyn.
. . .
An anlaas and a gipser al of silk
Heeng at his girdel, whit as morne milk.
(Students reading this tale for the first time may find an
interlinear translation helpful).
The Franklin labels his tale a
Breton
lay. For a contemporary definition of the
genre see:
Although the Franklin's Tale is a very unusual
"Breton lay," it does have elements of romance (see esp. Derek
Pearsall, The Canterbury
Tales, London, 1985 [PR 1874.P43].
Moreover, the names of Averagus and Aurelius seem to have been
derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Histories of the Kings of Britain
(tr. Sebastien Evans, London,1966 [Widener Br
1005.45.40]), which also contains an account of Merlin's magical
moving of rocks (to build Stonehenge); (see iv.15 and
vii.10-12). However, no close analogues to the Franklin's Tale
appear in any of the surviving romances. Much more likely is that the
tale was suggested by Boccaccio; he used a story of a lover's
impossible demands in the
Decameron: The same tale in a more elaborate form (with the production of a garden
in January rather than removal of rocks as the "impossible" demand) appears in
Boccaccio's Filocolo
, which many scholars regard as a direct source for the
Franklins Tale: The version in Il
Filocolo concludes with an extended debate
on who was the "most free." Chaucer leaves that out, preferring that
we come up with our own answers -- but those offered by the
characters in Boccaccio's version are most interesting. Dorigen's "rash promise" has attracted
considerable attention; for a contemporary example from what is
claimed to be real life see: Dorigen's catalogue of women who committed suicide
rather than become unchaste is drawn from Jerome's
Adversus Jovinianum: The idea of a "contract" governing a marriage
comes up in one of the exempla told by the "Goodman of Paris":
The Franklin's Tale has long been regarded as the
culmination of "The Marriage Group," the discussion of marriage that
extends at least from the Wife of Bath's Prologue to the the
Franklin's Tale, which has traditionally been taken as in some sense
resolving the "marriage question" proposed by the Wife of Bath -- who
should rule in a marriage? This reading was developed by George Lyman
Kittredge as part of his interpretation of
The Canterbury Tales as a
dramatically realized "Human Comedy." Kittredge's article on
"Chaucer's Discussion
of Marriage" is one of, if not the most,
famous and influentical critical articles ever written on Chaucer.
Few would agree with all Kittredge says in this article, but it
continues to shape much of the debate about
The Canterbury Tales down to the
present day.
For two approaches quite different from Kittredge's see:
[Dorigen and Averagus marry, swearing
that neither will ever exert absolute power over the other. Aurelius,
a young squire, in Averagus' absence, courts Dorigen, who rejects him
by setting what she thinks is an impossible task: remove the
threatening rocks from the coast, she promises, and I shall grant you
my love. With the help of a learned clerk (to whom he promises an
immense fee), Aurelius succeeds (though perhaps only by illusion) and
he then demands her love. She tells Averagus, who orders her to keep
the assignation with Aurelius. Aurelius, impressed with Averagus'
action, in turn releases Dorigen from her promise. The learned clerk,
impressed by Aurelius' action, forgives the squire his debt. The
question remains: who was the "most free"?]
Introduction
to the Lai de Frein
David Aers, ""Chaucer: Love, Sex and Marriage," from Chaucer, Langland, and the creative imagination, 1980 pp. 143-70.
Jill Mann, "Chaucerian Themes and Style in the Franklin's Tale," New Pelican Guide to English Literature, Vol. 1, Part 1, Chaucer and Alliterative Poetry, ed. Boris Ford, pp. 133-153.
As these articles show, interpretations of the Franklin's Tale differ greatly; Kittredge's reading (cited above) is still current and may be right, but it has seemed too neat to many contemporary critics. The Franklin is a man who loves domestic ease and (one assumes) tranquility; compromise, some critics argue, comes naturally to him as the easy way out. Alfred David, in The Strumpet Muse (Bloomington, IUP, 1976 [PR1924.D3], warns that what Kittredge argues is Chaucer's own solution -- "A better has never been devised or imagined" -- deeply appeals to our modern sensibilities and thus is, for that very reason, suspect.
For a bibliography of critical and scholarly works on the Franklin's Tale (and "romances" generally) click here.