The Rhetoric of Rape and the Politics of Gender in the "Wife of Bath's Tale" and the 1382 Statute of Rapes.
- Author / Editor
- Edwards, Suzanne.
The Rhetoric of Rape and the Politics of Gender in the "Wife of Bath's Tale" and the 1382 Statute of Rapes.
- Published
- Exemplaria 23 (2011): 3-26.
- Description
- Reads the rape motif of WBT against the background, context, and language of the Statute of Rapes (1382), arguing that the tale uses "narrative strategies made possible in late-medieval regulation of 'raptus'" to present "the realities of gendered violence without reifying the violence of gender itself." Treats the Statute as part of the "legal reform" inspired by the case of the abduction and marriage of Eleanor, daughter of Sir Thomas West, a case concerned with ambiguities of rape, ravishment, consent, and gender.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Background and General Criticiam