'My Bed Was Ful of Verray Blood: Subject, Dream, and Rape in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

Author / Editor
Leicester, H. Marshall, Jr.

Title
'My Bed Was Ful of Verray Blood: Subject, Dream, and Rape in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

Published
Peter G. Beidler, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer: "The Wife of Bath." (Boston and New York: Bedford-St. Martin's, 1996), pp. 234-54.

Description
Treats the Wife of Bath as a subject in the process of self-definition who simultaneously seeks to deconstruct the society that constitutes that process. Leicester focuses on the dream of blood in WBP (577-82) to show the difficulty of determining any single meaning. He deconstructs "Paradventure" in WBT (893) to explore the indeterminable relations between rape and lawful marriage and, more generally, the indeterminacy of any text.

Alternative Title
Geoffrey Chaucer: "The Wife of Bath": Complete Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
Language and Word Studies.