The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect
- Author / Editor
- Matthews, William.
The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect
- Published
- Viator 5 (1974): 413-43.
- Description
- Considers medieval depictions of old age as part of the tradition of "contemptus mundi," focusing on female old age. Treats Chaucer's Wife of Bath as the most individual and entertaining of the comic randy old women of medieval narrative, here surveyed in classical and medieval traditions: Ovid's Dipsas, Jerome, Vetulla, Jean de Meun's La Vieille, Juan Ruiz, Matheolus, Deschamps, etc. Alisoun of Bath is an example of the "senex puer," young and old at the same time.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.