Tradition and Feminism in Middle English Literature: Source-Hunting in the Wife of Bath's Portrait and in the 'Owl and the Nightingale'

Author / Editor
Mertens-Fonck, Paule.

Title
Tradition and Feminism in Middle English Literature: Source-Hunting in the Wife of Bath's Portrait and in the 'Owl and the Nightingale'

Published
H. Maes-Jelinek et al., eds. Multiple Worlds, Multiple Words: Essays in Honour of Irene Simon (Liege: University of Liege, Department of English, 1987), pp. 175-92.

Description
In their defense of women, Chaucer and the anonymous author of "The Owl and the Nightingale" seem to have drawn on the same description of the Adulterous Woman of Proverbs 7. Chaucer also uses the image of the Virtuous Woman and gives Alice knightly attributes, thereby linking her portrait and her prologue (where she is shown fighting with a clerk) by means of the clerk-knight theme.

Alternative Title
Multiple Worlds, Multiple Words: Essays in Honour of Irene Simon.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.