Perverse Pilgrims: Chaucer's Wife and Pardoner

Author / Editor
Holloway, Julia Bolton.

Title
Perverse Pilgrims: Chaucer's Wife and Pardoner

Published
Julia Bolton Holloway. Jerusalem: Essays on Pilgrimage and Literature (New York: AMS Press, 1998), pp. 173-94.

Description
Assesses the Wife of Bath (in contrast to the Clerk) and the Pardoner (in contrast to the Parson) as "Chaucer's Diptych of Eve and Adam," commenting on their depictions in the Ellesmere manuscript and reading them as inversions of the ideals of pilgrimage. Focuses on the Wife's association with Bath and her contrast with the Samaritan woman; considers the Pardoner's distortions of "the Emmaus tale" and his affiliations with the figure of Renart.

Alternative Title
Jerusalem: Essays on Pilgrimage and Literature.

Chaucer Subjects
Canterbury Tales--General.
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
Pardoner and His Tale.