Lindskoog, Verna De Jong.
Dissertation Abstracts International 45 (1985): 2520A.
Critical views of the Wife, though based on the same Chaucerian texts, vary widely--roughly between realistic approaches and those that ignore or deny realism.
Miyoshi, Yoko.
Hisashi Shigeo, et al., eds. The Wife of Bath (Tokyo: Gaku Shobo, 1985), pp. 30-47.
From the viewpoint of a history of social economics, Miyoshi explains why the poet chooses Bath as the Wife's place and shows that it was not unusual to to marry five times.
Rex, Richard.
Massachusetts Studies in English 10 (1985): 132-37.
Explicating WBP 418, Rex rejects Skeats's interpretation ("the common food of rustics") and Hoffman's ("harmony in marriage") and decides, on the basis of Old and Middle French slang meanings attested to in riddles and fabliaux, that the obscene…
Sheehan, Michael M.
Medievalia et Humanistica 13 (1985): 23-42.
Discusses the legal status of homogenous groups of medieval women--the landed class under common law, free townswomen, peasants under manorial custom, townswomen of lowly estate, and the religious--under headings birth, childhood, girlhood, majority,…
Contains eight articles and a bibliography. In Japanese. For the essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Wife of Bath (Shigeo) under Alternative Title.
Wilson, Katharina M.
Chaucer Review 19 (1985): 245-51.
Rather than the usually accepted "Adversus Jovinianum," Saint Jerome's letter to Pammachius is the probable source of the Wife's reference to barley (WBP 145). At best the result is an ambiguous vindication of--and at worst an attack on--the martial…
Wilson, Katharina M.
Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 4 (1985): 17-32.
Examination of the Wife of Bath's hypothesis that if women wrote stories literature would be misandric; yet men are the ones who promote the one-sided ideal of feminine excellence. Hrotsvita of Gandersheim and Christine de Pizan show women who are…
"Panne" in Chaucer's day sometimes designated a piece of clothing, sometimes a cooking utensil--and popular tradition associated the devil in hell with "pannes" (cooking utensils) and cauldrons. Chaucer's early audiences would have recognized in FrT…
The Summoner's "bokeleer" of cake is a hypocritical parody of the eucharistic Host ritual. A magic object, consecrated bread was used in "bread cures"--the Summoner hopes to use his "Host-bread shield" to cure his "sawcefleem."
Manning, Stephen.
Journal of Narrative Technique 15 (1985): 29-42.
The traditional paratactic style of folktales and a literary style emphasizing causation and motivation relate to allegorical themes: Walter's self-centeredness and Griselda's self-effacing love. A markedly different style in the Envoy relates to…
Morse, Charlotte C.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 7 (1985): 51-86.
Discusses fourteenth-century responses to the Griselda story--notably those of Petrarch, Philippe de Mezieres, and the "Menagier de Paris--focusing on their consistent understanding of the tale as an exemplary (not allegorical) account of heroic…
Brown, Peter.
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 231-43.
Three medieval optical authorities possibly known by Chaucer--Alhazen, Witelo, and Bartholomew--provide parallels for the visual deceptions at the end of MerT, which reflect the medieval tradition of "perspectiva."
Explores why Chaucer connected the theme of marriage with a fabliau of a pear-tree story, observing January's view of marriage and his actual married life.
Braswell surveys the mechanical devices in late-medieval culture and traces their origins in Continental and Arabic lands. She asserts that Chaucer was knowledgeable about machinery and its prevalence and that the magic tricks in FranT correspond to…
Though some readers have seen the contract in this tale as evidence of Chaucer's acceptance of the male's dominance in marriage, the relationship of Dorigen and Arveragus is actually an ideal society in miniature.
