Narration in Two Versions of “Virginius and Virginia”

Abstract

This article reconsiders Gower's “Virginius and Virginia” (Confessio Amantis, 7.5131–306) and Chaucer's Physician's Tale, along with modern interpretations of them, in the light of the relation between medieval narrative and modern narrative theory. It argues that neither narrative has a fictional narrator, that the narratorial I of the Physician's Tale is best understood as Chaucer, and more generally that application of the modern concept of the unreliable narrator to medieval narratives is unhistorical and distorting.