The Wife's "long-winded autobiography" in WBP--a "wishful, wistful self-serving fantasy" and "long, stupendous performance" that seems to "thrill to the idea" of rape--reflects her personality through its "touchiness and pugnacity," "garrulous…
Study guide to WBPT that includes commentary on their place in the CT, their sources and backgrounds, and medieval and modern ways of assessing the Wife's character. Includes a summary/commentary of the narratives, arranged in segments, followed by…
Steinberg, Aaron.
College English 26.3 (1964): 187-91.
Compares the knight's decision in the marriage bed of WBT to that of the analogous one in the more mythic "Marriage of Sir Gawain," arguing that in the context of Chaucer's relatively realistic Tale, the decision to return the choice to the loathly…
Dane, Joseph A.
Modern Language Review 99 (2004): 287-300
During the nineteenth-century construction of the fabliau as a distinct genre, scholars grouped ShT with other "coarse" tales and theorized that Chaucer had reassigned it from the Wife of Bath to the Shipman, assuming that the fabliau form was not…
Robinson, Peter, ed., with contributions from N. F. Blake, Daniel W. Mosser, Stephen Partridge, and Elizabeth Solopova.
Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1996.
Contains original-spelling transcripts of all fifty-four manuscripts and four pre-1500 printed editions of WBP, with digitized images of every page of text contained in these sources (1,200 images in all). The transcripts are linked with two…
Scala, Elizabeth.
Frank Grady, ed. The Cambridge Companion to "The Canterbury Tales" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 105-20.
Explains how the Wife of Bath dominates not only her own material in WBPT, but also CT as a whole. Discusses generic expectations for the Wife and her handling of biblical and classical material, to demonstrate that she represents "an irreducibly…
Allen, Valerie, and David Kirkham,eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1998.
Middle English text of WBPT and the GP description of the Wife of Bath, with notes, glossary, and discussion questions on facing pages. Includes commentary on Chaucer's life, contemporary social issues (including pilgrimage), and the rest of CT.…
Winny, James, ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Middle English edition of WBPT, with end-of-text notes and glossary. The Introduction (pp. 1-28) discusses sources, the relation of WBP to WBT, themes, etc., with additional comments on the text and Chaucer's usage. Includes Chaucer's Gent and a…
Winny, James, ed. Rev. ed. Sean Kane and Beverly Winny, eds.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Middle English edition of WBPT and GP description of the Wife of Bath, with end-of-text notes and glossary. The Introduction (pp. 1-32) discusses sources, the relation of WBP to WBT, themes, etc. Includes Chaucer's Gent and a selection from…
Piehler, Paul.
Hudson, Québec: Golden Clarion Literary Services, 1980.
Item not seen; the WorldCat records indicate that this is a reading by Piehler of WBPT in Middle English and that WBP and WBT were re-issued separately in 1986 and 2010.
Allen, Mark, and John H. Fisher, eds., with the assistance of Joseph Trahern.
Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 2012.
Part 5a includes a new text and set of collations for WBPT, based on the Hengwrt MS, with variants from landmark manuscripts and scholarly editions; also includes a Critical Commentary (pp. 3-148) that surveys critical tradition topically, a Textual…
Tasioulas, J. A.
Harlow: Longman; London: York Press, 1998.
Study guide to WBPT that includes a plot synopsis, running commentary, and glosses (text not included, except for three passages for closer analysis). Also includes descriptions of the Wife's character, various themes and devices, sources and…
Summary (without text) and commentary on WBPT, arranged in sections, accompanied by glosses to Middle English phrases. Also includes a brief introduction to Chaucer, CT, and medieval antifeminism; commentary on characterization, the Wife's horoscope,…
Thomas, Paul R., dir,
Provo, Utah: Chaucer Studio, 1995.
Recorded at the Ninth International Congress of the New Chaucer Society, Trinity College, Dublin, 1994. Re-edited and digitally mastered as a CD-ROM by Troy Sales and Paul Thomas in 2003.
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…
