The Wife of Bath: A Biography.

Author / Editor
Turner, Marion.

Title
The Wife of Bath: A Biography.

Published
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022.

Physical Description
x, 320 pp.; 14 color illus.

Description
Combines personal appreciation and critical analysis of the Wife of Bath as a character; Chaucer’s art in creating her and WBPT; and the voluminous historical reception and impact of the Wife from early scribal glosses to international modern adaptations in poetry, drama, fiction, opera, film, children's literature, poster-art, and more. Includes commentary on source study of the Wife; cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds to her in post-plague England; close reading of passages of WBPT; and assessments of adaptations by Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope, Voltaire, Percy MacKaye, James Joyce, Vera Chapman, Caroline Bergvall, Jean “Binta” Breeze, Patience Agbabi, Zadie Smith, and more.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion