The Archwife and the Eunuch
- Author / Editor
- Kernan, Anne.
The Archwife and the Eunuch
- Published
- ELH 41 (1974): 1-25.
- Description
- The Pardoner's interruption of the WBP causes shifts in her tone and subject, but also alerts us to parallels between the two characters: wide travels, sermon-like autobiographical prologues, and tales which feature central characters who are "unconscious" projections of their tellers (Old Man and Loathly Lady). The two pilgrims are "exemplars of 'cupiditas'," and the Wife's sterility is evident in her distortions of orthodoxy.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale
- Pardoner and His Tale