Abstract
Although several Chaucer scholars have argued for the last four tales of theCanterbury Talesas a concluding sequence, it has not been generally recognized that Chaucer ends his book deliberately and skillfully beginning with the Second Nun's Tale. Through the concluding stories Chaucer disengages himself and his audience from the fiction making of theTales, moving toward his own voice in the Retraction, and he introduces themes of transformation in tales concerning the conversion of souls (Second Nun), the transmutation of metals through alchemy (Canon's Yeoman), the metamorphosis of Apollo's crow (Manciple), and the transforming powers of contrition and penitence (Parson, Retraction). The consistency of these closure themes provides evidence for the authority of the Ellesmere manuscript as against the highly regarded and recently published Hengwrt manuscript of theTales, which has a different concluding tale order and which does not contain the Canon's Yeoman's Tale.
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