What the Man of Law Can't Say: The Buried Legal Argument of the 'Wife of Bath's Prologue'
- Author / Editor
- Thomas, Susanne Sara.
What the Man of Law Can't Say: The Buried Legal Argument of the 'Wife of Bath's Prologue'
- Published
- Chaucer Review 31 (1997): 256-71.
- Description
- In WBP, the Wife delivers not a sermon but a mock legal case. Her reasoning is typical of courtroom reasoning, and (like lawyers) she buries her argument in rhetoric. Her unwritten law of marriage triumphs over the written laws of St. Paul, thus aligning her with the "new order of things"--legal negotiation and interpretation.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.