Rewriting Romance: Chaucer's and Dryden's 'Wife of Bath's Tale'

Author / Editor
Spearing, A. C.

Title
Rewriting Romance: Chaucer's and Dryden's 'Wife of Bath's Tale'

Published
Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 234-48.

Description
Disliking the unrealistic and the marvelous aspects of romance, Chaucer experimented with the genre in highly original ways in TC, KnT, FranT, SqT, and WBT. Chaucer comments on the romance through the inconsistency between the naturalistic verisimilitude of the unlearned Wife and the abundant learning displayed in WBT and WBP.
Dryden, however, did not translate her "Prologue." This separation of the tale from its teller puts Dryden's rewriting of romance in opposition to Chacuer's.

Alternative Title
Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer.

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.