Examines the use of Abelardian "sic et non" analysis in Mel as a demonstration of the "futility of arguing from Authority." In Mel, the sense of futility may be inadvertent, but in WBP it results from conscious parody of authoritarian argument.…
Disbrow, Sarah.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 8 (1986): 59-71.
Arthurian romance in Chaucer's WBT becomes analogous to "old wives' tales" denounced by Scripture, Augustine and other patristic writers, and ParsT. The Wife's telling such a romance undermines her claim to be a notable preacher and associates her…
Schmidt, A. V. C.
Notes and Queries 212 (1967): 230-31.
Using evidence from WBPT, challenges D. S. Silvia's argument (N&Q 1967: 8-10; same title) that the Wife of Bath has lost interest in Jankyn and is looking for husband number six.
Argues that details in WBP indicate that Jankyn, the Wife of Bath's fifth husband, is alive at the time of the Canterbury pilgrimage, even though the Wife is already "seeking for a replacement for him."
Tinkle, Theresa.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 32 (2010): 67-101.
Surveys and assesses the manuscript glosses and notes to WBP, arguing that scribal commentary affirms the Wife's orthodoxy as an exegete. The glosses and notes in Oxford, New College 314 (Ne), and related manuscripts grant authority to her uses of…
Cotter, James Finn.
Papers on Language and Literature 7 (1971): 293-97.
Identifies the "sharp incongruity" between the Wife of Bath's remarks on her initial encounter with Jankyn (WBP 3.543ff.) and Lenten sermons and traditions, sharpened by the irony of the Wife's two references to the Lenten season.
Knoetze, Retha.
Scrutiny 2: Issues in English Studies in Southern Africa 20.2 (2015): 34-53.
Argues that WBPT provides "a serious defence of women," claiming that the Wife's ideas about "about mutuality and domestic partnership" in marriage "coincide with ideas which were developing in Chaucer’s society as a result of social and economic…
Plummer, John F.
English Language Notes 18.2 (1980): 89-90.
As a number of bawdy lyrics attest, the comparison of the Wife's hat in GP (1.470-71) to a "bokeler" and "targe" suggest sexual and martial overtones. Through the intervening metaphor to joust/to have intercourse, both buckler and target signify what…
An Anglo-Norman piece in BL MS Harley 2253 copied about 1340 is analogous to WBP in tone, wit, and "outrageousness." Chaucer might have known this story of two women discussing the virtues of chastity versus sexual license. Includes text and…
Dame Alice embodies the "bossy woman" who wishes to be mastered in bed, demands freedom outside it, but only finds her ideal in fantasy. Her fourth husband failed to master her in bed; the fifth refused her freedom outside it; only the knight in WBT…
Fleissner, R[obert] F.
Chaucer Review 8 (1973): 128-32.
Though the Wife of Bath states that she never heard "diffinicioun" upon "fyve," the number of her husbands, Chaucer was probably aware of this number's significance as a symbol of earthly love in the numerological tradition of Dante, Macrobius, the…
Reisner, Thomas Andrew.
Modern Philology 71 (1974): 301-02.
Clarifies that the phrase "at chirche dore," used twice of the Wife of Bath's marriages indicates that she negotiated the financial arrangements of her dower before her marriage ceremonies, indicating shrewdness.
Ikegami, Tadahiro.
Hisashi Shigeo, et al., eds. The Wife of Bath (Tokyo: Gaku Shobo, 1985), pp. 101-22.
Examines irony of WBP based both on antifeminism and on antimaritalism of medieval European literature and shows that Alison is a comic, dramatic character.
Hamaguchi, Keiko.
Essays Commemorating the Retirement of Professor Sachiho Tanaka. (Tokyo: Kirihara Shoten, 1988), pp. 107-21.
Explores why Chaucer made the Wife of Bath an ideal wife after she became physically "somdel deef," tracing the meaning and effect of "deef" in the context of her revolt against the antifeminist tradition. In Japanese.
Hodges, Laura (F.)
Chaucer Review 27 (1993): 359-76.
Analyses the Wife's Sunday costume and her traveling outfit from realistic and symbolic perspectives. Her dress reveals her economic and social class as well as her "allegoric nature"--fair outside and foul inside.
Alisoun, the Wife of Bath, confesses certain details that parallel incidents in the Miller's story about young Alisoun. If the two Alisouns are one, then Old John is the Reeve, the Wife's fourth husband; and he suffers in embarrassed silence while…
Pearsall, Derek.
Cristina Maria Cervone and D. Vance Smith, eds. Readings in Medieval Textuality: Essays in Honour of A. C. Spearing (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2016), pp. 3-14.
Examines the lexicographical meaning of the word "experience" to gain an understanding of Chaucer's meaning and intent in WBP.
Bjork, Robert E.
Chaucer Review 53.3 (2018): 336-49.
Surveys Chaucer's uses of terms for private parts, and argues that his use of "bele chos" (beautiful thing) instead of pudendum (shameful thing) suggests his celebration of the Wife's sexuality.
Dor, Juliette.
Wendy Harding, ed. Drama, Narrative and Poetry in The Canterbury Tales (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2003), 139-55.
The Wife of Bath's "wanderings" reflect the multivalent meanings of the word. She contravenes the codes governing female behavior, including the standards for governing noble women and the values involved in "What the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter."…
Identifies analogues to the Wife of Bath's contrast between wheat and barley breads (WBP 3.143-44), arguing that she has herself baked "Priapic" barley loaves and that the description in its context exemplifies the combination of "exegetical and…
Two Anglo-Latin "celibacy poems" use "quoniam" to mean the same thing that it means in WBP, prompting the question, might a "joke have been circulating among thirteenth and fourteenth century clerics, that every "quare" has its 'quoniam'?"
The Wife's remedies are sometimes equated with cures or seen as a reference to Ovid's "Remedia amoris." The allusions in WBP to erotic magic indicate, however, that they are erotic stimulants.
