Abstract
This essay reads ‘The Vox and the Wolf’ as both a product and an allegory of the problematic of neighbouring. It argues that the poem’s emphasis on ruination and distress, together with the parody of confession acted out by the Fox and the Wolf around the ‘ginne’ of a well, betrays the lasting effects that the coming of the friars had upon English communitarian life. It further argues that the Fox and the Wolf should be understood as representative, not of animal life, but of creaturely life: life exposed to the upheavals and dislocations associated with the institution of new sovereign regimes. The essay concludes by asking whether the poem itself, in its refusal to sacrifice a certain bitter enjoyment, might be understood as a kind of neighbour to its modern readers.
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