Dryden's Version of the 'Wife of Bath's Tale'

Author / Editor
Mason, Tom.

Title
Dryden's Version of the 'Wife of Bath's Tale'

Published
Cambridge Quarterly 6 (1975): 240-56.

Description
Reads Dryden's version of WBT (from his "Fables") and his comments on the tale as reflections of his sensitivity to Chaucer's wit, humor, "genial irony," "gentle sarcasm," and especially his clever juxtapositions--the "imaginative setting of one thought or situation against another." Dryden's perspective can help us to better appreciate Chaucer's art and his "Cervantic gravity," a phrase Scott applied to Dryden himself.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations