Chaucer and the Mystical Marriage in Medieval Political Thought.
- Author / Editor
- Wilks, Michael.
Chaucer and the Mystical Marriage in Medieval Political Thought.
- Published
- Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 44 (1962): 489-530.
- Description
- Traces in biblical, classical, and political sources the development of the idea that the Pope and other rulers gain sovereignty through "mystical marriage" to their respective institutions, arguing that WBT "bears a striking similarity to [this] theory of political marriage." Comments on Irish analogues to the WBT and focuses on "four elements" of the Tale that indicate it is political "propaganda" addressed to Richard II: the rape motif, the "dual nature of the hag-wife," the "marriage compact" between knight and loathly lady, and the conferral of sovereignty through God's grace.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations