(695-9) Recalling the uses of the word "rede" with an outward, explicative, and even narratory sense in the House of Fame and in select places in the Book of the Duchess, a rereading of "reading" in the poem's last stanza as "explaining" or "writing" illuminates the fullness of the narrator's quest to understand and share his understanding.
Yet, because he is not clear on the distinction between story and narration, he is able to claim that 'narratory traits' in this novel prefigure the forms of Johnson's later work (p.