Narrative frames and interpretive models in Troilus and Criseyde Interpretative certainty is deliberately elusive in "Troilus and Criseyde" by Geoffrey Chaucer. The meaning within the text is convoluted and continually renegotiated. Any attempt to design a single coherent and stable source of meaning is, at best, problematic. In the course of the work, narrative frames are broken and rearranged and the validity of any fixed interpretive model is called into question. Virtually every broad thematic discussion developed is potentially qualified or compromised by the presence of a key figure, the poem's narrator. As an ever-present observer, the narrator is both author and audience of a sequence of events that he essentially helps create. He is manipulative but not omniscient; he is aware that his power to shape the text is significant but fundamentally limited. Through the narrator's appeals directly to the reader, the audience is encouraged to share the responsibility for creating and interpreting the tale. Rather than prejudging or promoting a particular ideological point of view, perhaps Chaucer creates the narrative space and freedom for such interpretive dialogue in order to explore but not espouse or impose specific moral, ethical, and philosophical notions. Plurality is valued above undisputed certainty. While this statement may seem to ignore the poem's patently Christian conclusion, I would argue that Chaucer has provided the reader with powerful interpretive models (through the narrator's actions and thoughts) that allow the reader to qualify or at least reconsider the meaning of even the most compelling Christian doctrine and absolute. The narrator begins by stating both his purpose and his pro...... at the heart of the document .......tations. Works cited and consulted: Chaucer, Geoffrey. "Troilus and Criseyde". RA Shoaf, ed. East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1989.Mehl, Dieter. "Chaucer's Narrator: Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales." in the Cambridge ChaucerCompanion. and. Pietro Boitani and Jill Mann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 213-226. Minnis, Alastair J. Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Late Middle Ages. London: Scolar Press, 1984. Wetherbee, Winthrop. Chaucer and the Poets: An Essay on Troilus and Criseyde. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984. Wallace, David. "Chaucer's Continental Legacy: The Early Poems and Troilus and Criseyde." in the Cambridge ChaucerCompanion. and. Pietro Boitani and Jill Mann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 19-37.