ABSTRACT
The Clerk’s tale is important not just as a very good instance of a particular type of religious story, the allegorical exemplum, but also because the exemplum focuses most clearly of all literary forms the tension between the content and meaning of a narrative. The logic of the exemplum, like that of a detective story, a single and authoritative interpretation of the narrative. The marquis rules over a fertile and secluded valley, where the cares of his ancestors have found tangible expression in the fine buildings they have left and the obedient and loving service of his subjects. The preliminaries to the marriage focus this emblematic role more clearly by making Grisilde a type of the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation. The harmonious relation between God and his creation, explicitly symbolised by the relation of Walter to his subjects and by his marriage to Grisilde, is also suggested by another feature of the narrative.
