The French Renaissance is dominated by the short story (under various names: "conte", a tale; "nouvelle", a short story like the Italian novella; "devis" and "propos", a spoken discussion; "histoire", a story). For the period, part of the attraction of the dialogued short story and the frame tale (with its fictional speakers discussing each other's stories) lies in their "performability" by someone reading out loud to a non-literate public and in their grab-bag and (frequently) digressive structure: these tales are capable of taking on all kinds of material, both sophisticated and vulgar.