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.
Levy, Bernard S.
Chaucer Review 4.2 (1969): 106-22.
Argues that the discussion of gentility by the Loathly Lady in WBP effects a change in the knight's moral vision, with no physical change in the Lady. Imagery and allusions to Baptism reinforce the point and run parallel to similar concerns in WBP,…
Contends that the Wife's defense against the charges of adultery (i.e., sex is a lantern that may be shared by many without depriving the owner) is a combination of a simile in the Roman de la Rose and a more exact parallel in Decameron 6.7, where…
Ashcroft, Dame Peggy, reader.
New York: Caedmon, 1961
Dramatic reading of WBPT, in the translation of J. U. Nicholson, directed by Howard Sackler. Liner notes quotes portions of GP description of the Wife in Middle English. Also issued on cassette tape and on CD-ROM.
Hagen, Susan K.
Susanna Freer Fein, David Raybin, and Peter C. Braeger, eds. Rebels and Rivals: The Contestive Spirit in The Canterbury Tales. Studies in Medieval Culture, no. 29 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1991), pp. 105-24.
WBP is Chaucer's attempt to formulate a "gynocentric hermeneutic" that challenges "standard patriarchal hierarchies." Yet, WBT demonstrates the inevitable failure of the attempt since Chaucer was a product of his time, "a fourteenth-century male…
Turner, Marion.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022.
Combines personal appreciation and critical analysis of the Wife of Bath as a character; Chaucer’s art in creating her and WBPT; and the voluminous historical reception and impact of the Wife from early scribal glosses to international modern…
Hagen, Susan K.
Constance H. Berman, Charles W. Connell, and Judith Rice Rothschild, eds. The Worlds of Medieval Women. (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1985), pp. 130-38.
From the perspective of feminist criticism Hagen opposes the Kittredge "Marriage Group," insisting that what the Wife implies in "who peyntede the leon" applies to critics' versions as well as to the clerks' versions of the Wife's behavior.
Wimsatt, James I.
Juliette Dor, ed. A Wyf Ther Was: Essays in Honour of Paule Mertens-Fonck (Liege: University of Liege, 1992), pp. 275-81.
The Wife of Bath's argument against Jerome's stance on virginity resembles Jerome's argument against Jovinian; Dorigen in FranT contemplates suicide, recommended by Jerome over the loss of chastity. Chaucer's use of Jerome illustrates Bakhtinian…
