SOURCE: Marchalonis, Shirley. “Medieval Symbols and the Gesta Romanorum.” The Chaucer Review 8, no.4 (spring 1974): 311-19.

In the following essay, Marchalonis argues that symbolism in the Gesta Romanorum stories is externally imposed rather than internally developed.

Since the theories of D. W. Robertson, Jr., were first proposed, their validity has been the subject of much scholarly discussion.¹ It seems unlikely that any more can be said about Robertson's ideas in general statements; what is needed now are systematic and painstaking attempts to apply the theories to specific works of medieval literature. In this paper I would like to examine Robertson's ideas about the use of symbols in connection with the Gesta Romanorum.

Robertson's method implies the existence of a fairly consistent set of symbols, not necessarily immediately identifiable, but possible to define at some level. A difficulty arises, however, from the fact that even symbols possessing multiple meanings must...