Old Wives' Tales: Classicism and Anti-Classicism from Apuleius to Chaucer
- Author / Editor
- Ziolkowski, Jan.
Old Wives' Tales: Classicism and Anti-Classicism from Apuleius to Chaucer
- Published
- Journal of Medieval Latin 12 (2002): 90-113
- Description
- Traces the tradition of characterizing stories as "old wives' tales" from Plato through Apuleius and Jerome to Chaucer's WBT, showing how the genre draws power from the paradox that "old women were the least powerful members of society and yet the most feared and reviled because of their seemingly uncontrolled speech and behaviour." The genre is relatively highly regarded in periods when the vernacular is esteemed.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.