Margery and Alison: Women on Top

Author / Editor
Wilson, Janet.

Title
Margery and Alison: Women on Top

Published
Sandra J. McEntire, ed. Margery Kempe: A Book of Essays. Garland Medieval Casebooks (New York: Garland, 1992), pp. 223-37.

Description
Treats Margery Kempe and the Wife of Bath as carnivalesque female figures, although each is "mediated and hence vindicated by a masculine consciousness"--Margery's scribe and Chaucer. Both narrators are characterized by "grotesque realism," exaggeration, and the habitation of liminal states, but Chaucer seeks to reaffirm the status quo that he disturbs while Margery remains disturbing.

Contributor
McEntire, Sandra J., ed.

Alternative Title
Margery Kempe: A Book of Essays.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale