This essay brings together two Chaucerian tales that, at first glance, might not seem to have much in common: one is a romance in verse, the other a didactic treatise in prose. They are not explicitly connected in the Canterbury Tales either by endlink or internal cross-reference. But a closer look suggests several points of connection. Both narratives might readily be understood to address the theme of forgiveness. Both feature female protagonists who are caught in and apparently sidelined by patriarchal structures in the resolution of their tales. Although Chaucer is the author of all the Tales, these two are among those that we might describe as acutely Chaucerian: The Tale of Melibee is, of course, one of the Chaucer-pilgrim's two tales (his second attempt, following the interrupted Tale of Sir Thopas); and the Franklin is a figure whose resumé has long been observed to overlap with Chaucer's own. In their self-referential reflections on storytelling, both tales are metafictions that address questions central to the literary enterprise itself; yet they do so, I will argue, not by calling attention to the shaping presence of the male author but to the resistive narrative agency of their female protagonists.

Dorigen and Prudence tend to be dismissed or overlooked by the masculine voices in the worlds of their texts and, often, by readers, too. Although Dorigen enters marriage with Arveragus on terms of equality, publicly he keeps the name of sovereignty; she seems to drift through the story, the terrible consequences of her rash promise avoided, it seems, only by the high-minded generosity of male rivals. Prudence certainly takes a more active role in her text, and yet she is maligned for her prolixity by her husband Melibee and modern critics alike. After she succeeds in curbing Melibee's plan for revenge and brokering a peace between him and his enemies, she recedes into the background of the tale as the public ceremony unfolds between men who wield political power.

In this essay, I offer a reevaluation of the roles of Dorigen and Prudence in their respective tales: each is fundamental not only to her tale's arrival at forgiveness but to Chaucer's exploration of the possibility of narrative fiction itself, suggesting the ways in which fiction-making and forgiveness are interdependent practices.