The Old Whore and Mediaeval Thought: Variations on a Convention.
- Author / Editor
- Haller, Robert S.
The Old Whore and Mediaeval Thought: Variations on a Convention.
- Published
- Ph.D. Dissertation. Princeton University, 1960.
- Physical Description
- vii, 373 pp.
- Description
- Explores a variety of sources, analogues, and backgrounds to WBPT and to the characterization of the Wife of Bath: the Bible (including St. Paul), St. Jerome, Philippe de Meziere's "Presentation Play," the tradition of the Ovidian "vetula" and La Vieille, and related materials, including artistic renderings. Offers an allegorical (or exegetical, patristic, or iconographical) reading of the Wife as a figure of carnal old age whose character and views are undercut ironically.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Baackground and General Criticism