Chaucerian Parrhesia: World-building and truth-telling in The Canterbury Tales and 'Lak of Stedfastnesse'

This essay examines the role of parrhesia (i.e., free, frank, or fearless speech) in three Canterbury Tales - The Second Nun's Tale, The Tale of Melibee, and The Manciple's Tale - in which Chaucer explores how the desire to play the parrhesiastes and anxieties about parrhesia's dangerousness can serve as catalysts in the production of literary worlds. By way of conclusion, it argues that Chaucer's short poem 'Lak of Stedfastnesse' might archive a quasi-parrhesiastic utterance directed at the despotic King Richard II, and that a modern conception of Chaucer as a non-polemical ironist has prevented many critics from reading it as such.