ABSTRACT
Guided by the scene in the Franklin's Tale where Aurelius is intercepted by the clerk outside of Orléans and redirected to the latter's house, this article argues that the Franklin's Tale deviates from politics in order to facilitate the historical convergence of oikonomia and second nature. In the Franklin's Tale we find ourselves trapped within the second nature produced by oikonomia: the world seems unchangeable only because we have lost sight of its historical character. Meanwhile, the realm of politics—and the authentic freedom it makes possible—hovers just outside the borders of the tale, a destination recalled but never reached. Fortunately, we have Dorigen's meditation on “the grisly feendly rokkes blake” to provide us with a model for the objectification of critical consciousness and thus with an apprehension of freedom. In Dorigen's critical “memory of nature,” we find our emancipation from inert second nature.
