The Liberation of the 'Loathly Lady' of Medieval Romance

Author / Editor
Shenk, Robert.

Title
The Liberation of the 'Loathly Lady' of Medieval Romance

Published
Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 2 (1981): 69-77.

Description
Assesses "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell" with recurrent glances at its analogues, Gower's "Tale of Florent" and Chaucer's WBT. The life question in the "Wedding" and in WBT "speak directly to a perennial feminine plight" (69), and in Chaucer's tale the gentility or "hidden goodness" of the loathly lady effects the conversion of the rapist knight.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations