| Popis: |
The long Tale of Melibee2 is short on plot, its ratio of saws to story explain ing both the neglect and the misinterpretation from which it suffers. Derek Pearsall has called the tale's plot a "peg on which to hang a vast quantity of moral discourse on a variety of matters," and he is one of many who find the Melibee a tale lacking a significant narrative dimension.3 For other readers, however, this peg wobbles considerably. These critics hold that the tale's arrangement of events guides the reader on the interpre tative path, but they trace the passage through the characters' absurd and disappointing actions as a sapper's tunnel undermining Melibee's progress in wisdom, Prudence's authority, and, hence, the tale's own claim to teach. I argue here, however, that a closer look at the Melibee's narra tive structure will demonstrate its strong and positive contribution to the tale's meaning, and will, in addition, clarify the roles Prudence and Melibee play in creating that meaning. Reaching beyond the particulars of Melibee's feud (its ostensible subject) the deliberative Melibee teaches deliberation: it lays before its reader a model of good decision-making that emphasizes the importance of proper speech to making proper deci sions. What is more, its narrative structure also develops in the reader skills essential to following this model. In particular, the tale inculcates a sensitivity to the shape of its own narrative contexts that develops an abil ity to see particular circumstances in light of larger patterns: in short, it trains its reader in the art of application.4 The tale thus completes its meaning in an effect it has on its reader, an effect produced by a narra tive structure whose patterns continually shape and reshape the reader's experience of the tale. Because the true complexity of the Melibee's nar rative structure has not been fully appreciated, the dependence of the tale's meaning on that structure has not been properly understood. |
