The Shape-Shiftings of the Wife of Bath, 1395-1670
- Author / Editor
- Cooper, Helen.
The Shape-Shiftings of the Wife of Bath, 1395-1670
- Published
- Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp. 168-84.
- Description
- The Wife of Bath is interpreted variously: She is a shrew; she is the voice of feminism; she represents Eve; she stands for joy and vitality. The Wife demands female sovereignty in marriage, but this sovereignty is put into doubt by the end of both her "Prologue" and her "Tale."
- In her "Prologue," the vicissitudes of her relationship with her fifth husband, the clerk Jankin, end not with their fight but with their reconciliation. And the hag-turned-beauty, ensuring the bliss of her marriage at the end of WBT, reinforces this idea.
- Alternative Title
- Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.