ABSTRACT
So far we have been considering stories which, for the most part, faithfully translate the ‘sentence’ and even the words of their originals. Notwithstanding the failure of the Clerk’s tale completely to realise the emblematic possibilities of its narrative, this generalisation holds almost as good for it as for the Second Nun’s tale and Melibee, and were an actual source ever discovered for the Prioress’s tale, might well hold good for it too. 1 We therefore appear to have evolved a clear model for our study of the remaining religious narratives of The Canterbury Tales.
