Alisoun of Bathe and the Reappropriation of Tradition

Author / Editor
Knapp, Peggy (A.)

Title
Alisoun of Bathe and the Reappropriation of Tradition

Published
Chaucer Review 24 (1989): 45-52.

Description
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 insist that we see the Wife as capable of living out this destiny; it requires only that we see her as capable of creating it as an appropriate ideal and a valid conclusion from the logic she uses.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.