The Variant Passages in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and the Textual Transmission of 'The Canterbury Tales': The 'Great Tradition' Revisited

Author / Editor
Kennedy, Beverly.

Title
The Variant Passages in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and the Textual Transmission of 'The Canterbury Tales': The 'Great Tradition' Revisited

Published
Lesley Smith and Jane H. M. Taylor, eds. Women, the Book and the Worldly: Selected Proceedings of the St. Hilda's Conference, 1993, Volume II (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), pp. 85-101.

Description
Documents the manuscript evidence of the authenticity of six passages in WBP (44a-f, 575-84, 605-08, 609-12, 619-26, 717-20) and surveys justifications for their inclusion in various editions.
Attributes the continued inclusion of these questionable passages to editorial conservatism and modern refusal to distinguish between repeated remarriage (evident throughout WBP) and sexual promiscuity (evident only in the passages).

Contributor
Smith, Lesley,
Taylor, Jane H. M.,ed.
ed.

Alternative Title
Women, the Book and the Worldly: Selected Proceedings of the St. Hilda's Conference, 1993, Volume II.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
Manuscripts and Textual Studies.