The Wife of Bath and a Contemporary Murder
- Author / Editor
- Hamel, Mary.
The Wife of Bath and a Contemporary Murder
- Published
- Chaucer Review 14 (1979): 132-39.
- Description
- Recent proposals that Alisoun and Jankyn may have murdered her fourth husband are analyzed and rejected. Their quarrel arises not from mutual guilt but from Jankyn's suspicions about Alisoun, and from his association of murder and female lust. Such an association attacks female sexuality, that which Alisoun values most highly in herself, and compels Alisoun to a lively defense of her nature.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.