The Wife of Bath's Hat as Sexual Metaphor

Author / Editor
Plummer, John F.

Title
The Wife of Bath's Hat as Sexual Metaphor

Published
English Language Notes 18.2 (1980): 89-90.

Description
As a number of bawdy lyrics attest, the comparison of the Wife's hat in GP (1.470-71) to a "bokeler" and "targe" suggest sexual and martial overtones. Through the intervening metaphor to joust/to have intercourse, both buckler and target signify what Alison refers to as her "bele chose."

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.