Idle and Extravagant Stories in Verse: 400 Years of Narrative Poetry from Sir Gawain to Wordsworth

Author / Editor
Simons, Christopher E. J.

Title
Idle and Extravagant Stories in Verse: 400 Years of Narrative Poetry from Sir Gawain to Wordsworth

Published
Humanities: Christianity and Culture (International Christian University) 41 (2013): 31-70.

Description
Clarifies what kind of poems William Wordsworth criticized as "idle and extravagant stories in verse" and examines four English narrative poems before Wordsworth, including WBT. All four turn out to be more or less "idle and extravagant" by Wordsworth's standards.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale