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Literary analysis reveals perceptual obstacles to speculation in romance narratives, highlighting the difficulty of interpreting the material world.
Engaged with the medieval philosophical tradition of speculatio , this article emphasizes the importance of mental perception to speculation about the world. The problematics of speculation emerge by way of literary equivocation: in Chaucer's account of Dorigen's fretful thinking in The Franklin's Tale as well as in Kazuo Ishiguro's treatment of Gawain's confusions in his speculative novel, The Buried Giant . Both texts demonstrate the difficulties of pondering the material things of the world. Considering them together clarifies the complex vicissitudes that perception poses to speculation as an activity in the here and now, emphasizing the difficulties of understanding what is right before our eyes.
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Patricia Clare Ingham (2026) studied this question.
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