The Not Yet "Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale."

Published: Jennifer Jahner and Ingrid Nelson, eds. Gender, Poetry, and the Form of Thought in Later Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth A. Robertson (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 2022), pp. 201-21.

Description: Considers WBPT as a "not yet" text, i.e., one that "points to a future resolution" without providing it. Rich in "represented reception" on the pilgrimage and in "contested reception" in manuscript glossing, critical response, and adaptation, the Wife's materials prompt efforts to resolve unfulfilled comedic potential. Assesses "The Wanton Wife of Bath"--set "outside history"--as a "perfect example of an anagogic reading" of WBPT as a "not yet" text.

Alternative Title: Gender, Poetry, and the Form of Thought in Later Medieval Literature

Chaucer Subjects: Wife of Bath and Her Tale
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion