The Chaucer Review: An Indexed Bibliography (Vols. 1-30)

Shoaf, R. A. "The Franklin's Tale: Chaucer and Medusa ." 21 (1986): 274-90.
The Franklin's Tale shows how Chaucer read Dante's Inferno, Cantos 9 and 10. Chaucer especially uses the image of the Medusa who turns to stone those who look at her. Dorigen's response to Aurelius's announcement that the rocks are gone indicates her "a-stone-ishment" (275). Chaucer uses the image of Medusa to examine the difficulties illusions create for those who cannot pierce the rhetoric from which they are built. As a result of these problems, Chaucer advocates an unshrinking analytic faculty to his readers.