Aurelius' Prayer, Franklin's Tale 1031–79: Sources and Analogues

Abstract

Although Aurelius' prayer to Apollo for the removal of the rocks in the Franklin's Tale is carefully and extensively developed by Chaucer, it has received insufficient attention from critics, and its awkward, apparently incongruent place in the tale's plot development remains a matter of puzzlement. Addressing the neglect of Aurelius' prayer in the studies of the sources and analogues of the Canterbury Tales by Bryan and Dempster and, more recently, Correale and Hamel, this article consolidates existing criticism on the prayer's textual layers and brings further sources and analogues to light. Chaucer modelled Aurelius' prayer upon an eclectic cluster of literary precedents, from Boccaccio to Boethius to Ovid to Marian lyrics, and was as interested in their interpenetration as in the ironic tensions among them. A recognition of this passage's multivalence enhances our understanding both of the allusive methods and the shifting, exploratory techniques of characterization that define Chaucer's mature style in the Franklin's Tale, rendering it one of his most successful narrative experiments.