'Wandrynge by the Weye': On Alisoun and Augustine
- Author / Editor
- Knapp, Peggy A.
'Wandrynge by the Weye': On Alisoun and Augustine
- Published
- Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 142-57.
- Description
- Arguments against patristic readings in WBP pose the "problem of controlling biblical interpretation in an age of increasing lay literacy." The Wife speaks of herself as "a text to be glossed."
- In posing questions about textual glossing, Knapp asserts that Alison's allusions to glossing show her both "an interpreter of texts" and "a theorist of interpretation"; Augustine does not unequivocally advocate the "glossing" tradition the Wife attacks; "gradual historical accretions closed Augustine allegorical system, but eventually social and intellectual pressures reopened it"; these bear on "the interpretation of the figure of Alisoun herself."
- Alison becomes "a figure for the garrulous, incorrigible, inexplicable text, always 'wandrynge by the weye,' always escaping from any centralizing authority." Knapp is influenced by Derrida and Bakhtin.
- Alternative Title
- Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.