Chaucer's Wife of Bath, the Loathly Lady, and Dante's Siren.

Author / Editor
Levy, Bernard S.

Title
Chaucer's Wife of Bath, the Loathly Lady, and Dante's Siren.

Published
Symposium 19 (1965): 359-73.

Description
Argues that Dante's siren of "Purgatorio" XIX is analogous to the Wife of Bath and the transformation of the loathly lady of WBT, helping to undercut the Wife's views on female sovereignty and ironically "reasserting the medieval Christian idea of the proper man-wife relationship."

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations