D. W. Robertson has already demonstrated the relationship between the Samaritan Woman (Matt. 4:4) and the Wife of Bath. But the similarities are even deeper, extending to an ironic typology of the harlot saved, including Mary Magdalene.
In WBP and WBT, Chaucer dramatizes a powerful reorientation of tradition. In the endings of both, Alison images a reconciliation that awards women justification and a degree of self-definition, without injuring men. The comic genre of CT does not…
An extended prose-poem (with portions lineated), presented as a dialogue between "Caroline" and "Alisoun," the latter an adaptation of the Wife of Bath. Transgresses temporal, linguistic, modal, and thematic categories, and includes references to…
WBT supplies the feminine gloss to the masculinist texts underlying WBP. It provides a marriage pedagogy in which the partners discover their own desires by attempting to learn each other's desires.
Houser, Richard McCormick.
Chaucer Review 48.1 (2013): 66-90.
Argues that the Wife of Bath "employs the courtroom pleading techniques of 'excepcion' and 'confession' and 'avoidance' to challenge the misogynist teachings of clerical authority." Demonstrates how Alisoun's discourse in WBP reveals her familiarity…
Allen, Judson Boyce, and Patrick Gallacher.
Chaucer Review 4.2 (1969): 99-105.
Excavates the multi-layered ironies of WBT, focusing on the motifs of transformation and bad judgment and on the Wife of Bath's manipulations of her narrative materials, particularly the Ovidian Midas exemplum.
Knapp, Peggy A.
Philological Quarterly 65 (1986): 387-401.
Discusses four readings of WBP: (1) Alison as a shrewd, aggressive entrepreneur, (2) Alison as a feminist in a society that constantly maligns her, (3) Alison as an archteypical Eve guilty of the sin of pride, and (4) Alison as a sociopath. These…
Storm, Melvin.
Modern Language Quarterly 42 (1981): 219-26.
The deafness of the Wife of Bath is viewed as an iconographic reflection of her unbalanced intellectual and spiritual position. Hearing as she does with only one ear, the Wife's views are skewed to improper attention to the present--to the things of…
Donaldson, Kara Virginia.
Philological Quarterly 71 (1992): 139-53.
Absolon appropriates the language of courtly love, thereby rendering himself deaf to Alisoun's realistic language and setting himself up as a glossator of Alisoun's body/text. When Alisoun disrupts his gloss by exposing "hir hole" (i.e., her…
Dinshaw, Carolyn.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 35 (2013): 3-25.
Contemplates the queer potential of parody and other forms of "engaging multiple temporalities," commenting on two nineteenth-century responses to the "Book of John Mandeville" and on a fictional incident posted on Brantley Bryant's "Chaucer Hath a…
Askins, William.
Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior, eds. Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Hanning (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 271-89.
Askins reads Th for details that reflect Anglo-Flemish relations during the Hundred Years War. He identifies heraldic details, commercial concerns, and echoes of the Ghent war of 1379-84.
Rogers, Shannon L.
Westfield, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2007.
Nearly 200 encyclopedia entries on wide-ranging topics, allusions, and sociohistorical contexts, many with illustrations and all with suggestions for further reading. Does not include entries for individual works by Chaucer but surveys them in the…
Greenspan, Charlotte L., and Lester M. Hirsch, eds.
New York: Macmillan, 1971.
An anthology of literary depictions of "overt prejudice" (p. xi) including a modern translation of PrT in rhyme royal (by Nevill Coghill) in a section called "Roots of Prejudice." The volume is designed for classroom use, with discussion questions…
Trimble, Lester., composer.
No publisher indicated, 1956.
Item not seen. WorldCat record indicates this is a printed reproduction for rehearsal, for four male voices. Evidently a musical setting for KnT 1.2775ff.
Wu, Yuching.
Dissertation Abstracts International A80.07 (2019): n.p.
Aligns happy endings with the "rhetoric of bliss" in Middle English romances and includes discussion of jealousy as the crux of KnT, arguing that the "happy closure" of the narrative can only come about when the jealousy between Palamon and Arcite is…
Russell, J. Stephen, ed.
New York and London: Garland, 1988 (for 1987).
Dedicated to the memory of Judson Boyce Allen, this collection of ten articles by various hands examines medieval allegory in terms of modern critical theory. For three essays that pertain to Chaucer, search for Allegoresis under Alternative Title.
Foster, Edward E.
Ball State University Forum 11.4 (1971): 14-20.
Explores the extent to which the narrator and the dreamer, as separate psychologies, experience consolation through the progress of BD, assessing parallels between the Ceyx and Alcyone account and the dream of the knight' sorrow.
Rumble, Patrick.
Toronto and Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
The films "The Decameron," "Canterbury Tales," and "The Arabian Knights" make up Pasolini's "Trilogy," here explored for how the films reflect understanding of the literary works from which they derive--in particular, how Pasolini's "Abiura," or…
Barney, Stephen A.
Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press, 1979.
Derives theory and definition from close readings of Prudentius's "Psychomachis," "Piers Plowman," "The Romance of the Rose," and "The Faerie Queene" as well as four more modern allegories.
Ramachandran, Ayesha.
Modern Language Notes 135 (2020): 1094-1107.
Explores references and allusions to Chaucer (SqT and KnT), Ariosto, and Boiardo in Spenser's "densely self-reflective meta-critical mediation" on national and international poetic influences in Book IV of his "Faerie Queene." Focuses on the…
Galloway, Andrew.
Dissertation Abstracts International 53 (1992): 1513A.
Higden's Latin universal history reflects his critical and individual approach. Trevisa's translation and its continuations further this individuality. The Wife of Bath also reworks authorities in a distinctive way, bending them so that Chaucer's…
