The Electronic Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer: The Electronic Canterbury Tales

Daniel T. Kline | U of Alaska Anchorage | Dept of English
Chaucer Pedagogy Page | Chaucer Metapage

Web Resources by Tale

Electronic Canterbury Tales Home Page

Fragment I / Group A
The General Prologue
The Knight's Tale
The Miller's Prologue & Tale
The Reeve's Prologue & Tale
The Cook's Prologue & Tale

Fragment II / Group B1
The Man of Law's Introduction, Prologue, Tale, & Epilogue

Fragment III / Group D
The Wife of Bath's Prologue & Tale
The Friar's Prologue & Tale
The Summoner's Prologue & Tale

Fragment IV / Group E
The Clerk's Prologue & Tale
The Merchant's Prologue, Tale, & Epilogue

Fragment V / Group F
The Squire's Introduction & Tale
The Franklin's Prologue & Tale

Fragment VI / Group C
The Physician's Tale
The Pardoner's Introduction, Prologue, & Tale

Fragment VII / Group B2
The Shipman's Tale
The Prioress's Prologue & Tale
The Prologue & Tale of Sir Thopas
The Tale of Melibee
The Monk's Prologue & Tale
The Nun's Priest's Prologue,
Tale, & Epilogue

Fragment VIII / Group G
The Second Nun's Prologue & Tale
The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue & Tale

Fragment IX / Group H
The Manciple's Prologue & Tale

Fragment X / Group I
The Parson's Prologue & Tale
The Retraction

The Electronic Canterbury Tales:
Troilus and Criseyde

Additional Pages in The Electronic Canterbury Tales

Chaucer the Narrator - Pilgrim and Author

Chaucer's "Orphan" Pilgrims

The Frame Tale, Later Continuations,& Apocrypha

Troilus and Criseyde

Electronic Chaucer Texts: What's Available Online?

Chaucer in / and Popular Culture

Headings, Organization, & Criteria for Inclusion

ECT Revision History:
What's New?

The Chaucer Pedagogy Documentation Primer

The Chaucer Pedagogy Page

Need Teaching Ideas & Resources?
The Chaucer Pedagogy Page

Complete Online Versions of the Canterbury Tales

The Complete Tales in Middle English at UVa (1510 kb)

Search the UVa Middle English Text Archive

Sinan Kökbugur's hypertext, helpfully glossed Middle English edition at the Librarius Homepage

The Electronic Library Foundation's edition of the Canterbury Tales is available in a variety of formats

The Litrix Reading Room Translation of the Canterbury Tales

Top 15
Medieval & Chaucer-Related Sites

The Aberdeen On-line Bestiary

Argos: Limited Area Search of the Ancient & Medieval Internet

The Camelot Project

Exploring Ancient World Cultures

Geoffrey Chaucer: Annotated Guide to Online Resources

Gothic Dreams

The Harvard Chaucer Page

Internet Medieval Sourcebook

The Labyrinth

The Luminarium

The Online Medieval and Classical Library

Project Seafarer / Anglo-Saxon.net

TEAMS Middle English Text Series

Univ. of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative

Voice of the Shuttle

</center> </td> <td width="10" height="7750" bgcolor="#C0C0C0"></td> <td valign="top" width="479" bgcolor="#008080" height="7750">The Wife of Bath's Tale<hr> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Here's the famous portrait of the <a href="http://www.huntington.org/LibraryDiv/ChaucerPict.html">Wife of Bath from the Ellesmere Manuscript</a> (Huntington Library, San Marino, California) <hr> 1.  In Middle English <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> The <a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html?id=Cha2Can&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed&tag=public&part=13&division=div1">Wife of Bath's Prologue</a> and the <a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html?id=Cha2Can&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed&tag=public&part=14&division=div1">Wife of Bath's Tale</a> at the UVa Electronic Text Center. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Read the Wife of Bath's Tale in the context of <a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html?id=Cha2Can&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed&tag=public&part=3&division=div">Fragment III - Group D</a>. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Read the <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/ct_wb.html">Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale according to the Hengwrt ms </a>(Hg), one of the two most important early manuscripts, at the University of Toronto's <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/www/utel/rp/intro.html">Representative Poetry On-line</a> site. The Ellesmere ms (El) is the other important early edition. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Read the <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/CT-prolog-bathpara.html">Wife of Bath's Prologue</a> in parallel Middle English and Modern English texts at Paul Halsall's IMSB. <big>2.  In Modern English Translation </big> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Scott Gettman's edition of the <a href="http://www.canterburytales.org/canterbury_tales.html">Canterbury Tales</a> (Electronic Literature Foundation) is accessible by individual tale & available in a variety of formats:  Middle English, Modern English, Facing Page, & Interpolated - Glossed (frames; from unknown base text). <ul> <li>Although unsuitable for formal academic research, the ELF edition is the best online version for younger readers and those unfamiliar with Middle English. Easily navigable, and the Middle English glosses are very helpful.</li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> The <a href="http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/webcore/murphy/canterbury/">General Prologue and the Marriage Group</a> has been modernized by Michael Murphy (CUNY-Brooklyn), each tale featuring a handsome introduction. Read the <a href="http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/webcore/murphy/canterbury/ctwife.pdf">Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale</a>.  Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> The <a href="http://www.litrix.com/canterby/cante001.htm">Litrix Reading Room </a>translation of the Canterbury Tales features rhyming couplets. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Sinan Kökbugur's helpfully glossed hypertext Middle English rendition of the complete <a href="http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm">Canterbury Tales</a> is available at the <a href="http://www.librarius.com">Librarius</a> page. Use the Table of Contents in the left frame to click on a specific Tale, and difficult terms and phrases are glossed in the lower frame.  <big>3.  Historical & Cultural Backgrounds</big> <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> The Wife of Bath made three pilgrimages to Jerusalem, quite an achievement for the time. The University of Southern Colorado, Department of History has put together a very fine <a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/seminar97.html">Traveling to Jerusalem</a> website, detailing pilgrim accounts from the 3rd century to the present day.  See, for example, the accounts by  <ul> <li><a href="http://www.christusrex.org/www1/ofm/pilgr/00PilgrHome.html">Anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux (333)</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/egeria.htm">Egeria (381-384) Roman Spain</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/arculf.htm">Arculf (680)</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/bernard.htm">Bernard the Wise (c. 870) France</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/khusraw.htm">Nasir-i-Khusraw (1046-1052) Balkh</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/daniel.htm">Daniel (1106-1107) Russia</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/benjamin.htm">Benjamin of Tudela (1160-1173) Spain</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/theoderich.htm">Theoderich (1172) Germany</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/polo.htm">Marco Polo (c. 1254-1324) Venice</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/sauma.htm">Bar Sauma (c. 1278-1313) China</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/anonymous.htm">Anonymous Guidbook to Palestine (c. 1350)</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/kempe.htm">Margery Kempe (1413-1415) England</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/poloner.htm">John Poloner (1422) Germany?</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/tafur.htm">Pero Tafur (1435-39) Spain</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/fabri.htm">Felix Fabri (1480 & 1483-84) Germany</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.uscolo.edu/history/seminar/casola.htm">Pietro Casola (1494) Milan</a></li> </ul> <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> See also Harold L. Osher's web exhibit <a href="http://www.usm.maine.edu/~maps/exhibit1/index.html">Jerusalem 3000: Three Millenia of History</a> (U of Southern Maine, Osher Map Library) for a number of medieval and early-modern images of the holy city. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Paul Halsall's <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/women/womensbook.html">Internet Women's History Sourcebook</a> (IWHSB), a subset of the IMSB and Halsall's other WWW pages, provides a wealth of material related to women's history.  Of general interest is the <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/women/womensbook.html#Medieval Europe">Medieval Europe</a> subpage of the IWHSE and the following:<ul> <li><a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/bible-marr.html">The Bible on Marriage</a> (IMSB)</li> <li>St Augustine <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aug-marr.html">On Marriage and Concupiscence</a> (IMSB)</li> <li>St Jerome <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/jerome-marriage.html">On Marriage and Virginity</a> (IMSB)</li> <li>Thomas Acquinas <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aquinas-sex.html">On Sex</a> (from the Summa)</li> <li><a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/manor-marr1.html">Manorial Marriage and Sexual Offense Cases</a> (13th cent., IMSB)</li> <li><a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/hyams-xcourts.html">Church Courts Pursue Adulterers</a> (1289, IMSB)</li> <li>St Bernardino of Siena, <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/bernardino-2sermons.html">Two Sermons on Wives and Widow</a> (1427, IMSB)</li> <li>And many other interesting sources.</li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Of particular interest as a comparison to the Wife of Bath is <a href="http://www.teamsmedieval.org/#k">The Book of Margery Kempe</a>, the memoir of a medieval woman whose breadth of experience and force of personality was as great, if not greater than, the fictional Alice of Bath. See Lynn Staley's <a href="http://128.151.244.128/camelot/teams/kempint.htm">Introduction</a> and edition of <a href="http://www.teamsmedieval.org/#k">The Book of Margery Kempe</a> online at <a href="http://www.teamsmedieval.org/#menu">TEAMS</a>. An important text in a student edition made freely available on the WWW. <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <a href="http://www.holycross.edu/departments/visarts/projects/kempe/">Mapping Margery Kempe: A Guide to Late Medieval Material and Spiritual Life</a> (Sarah Stanbury and Virginia Raguin, Holy Cross) is an excellent new resource that, in the words of the authors, provides "a digital library of resources for studying the cultural and social matrix of The Book of Margery Kempe. A goal of this site is to provide access to the material culture of Kempe's 15th century world, and especially the dynamic world of the parish. Materials at this site include a unique and extensive database of images of East Anglian parish churches. Other resources include the Middle English text and related devotional writings and saints' lives; documents about daily life, politics and commerce in 15th century Lynn; maps of pilgrimage routes; a gallery of devotional images; and bibliography and guides for teaching." See especially: <ul> <li><a href="http://www.holycross.edu/departments/visarts/projects/kempe/model/viewa.html">Model 15th Century Parish Church</a></li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> See also Aniinna Jokkinen's <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/margery.htm">Margery Kempe</a> page at the <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/">Luminarium</a>:<ul> <li><a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/margerybio.htm">The Life of Margery Kempe</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/kempebib.htm">Bibliography</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medessay.htm#kempe">Essays and Articles</a></li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> How is the ideal wife supposed to conduct herself?  Read the <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/goodman.html">Goodman of Paris</a> (Le Menagier de Paris,c. 1392-94), a text roughly contemporary with Chaucer's own work, to get some sense of the medieval "ideal." <big>4.  Sources, Analogues, & Related Texts</big> <img src="ECT_Pr1.gif" border="0" v:shapes="_x0000_i1025" width="32" height="13"> <img border="0" src="file:///M:/Academic%20Folder/Electronic%20Canterbury%20Tales/SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm">TEAMS Middle English Text Series</a> (Russell Peck, URochester) houses a number of lesser known and hard to find medieval texts in helpful student editions. A generous and fascinating selection not to be missed! Each selection includes a scholarly introduction and full notes. Some of the selections related to the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale include: <ul> <li>The Trials and Joys of Marriage (ed. Eve Salisbury), Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2002.  <ul> <li><a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/salintro.htm">Introduction</a> (Eve Salisbury)</li> <li><a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/s6frm.htm">Select Secular Lyrics of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries</a></li> <li>William Dunbar's <a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmfrm.htm">The Tretis of the Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo</a></li> <li>Includes a number of short lyrics and other texts in a single file, including "In Praise of Women," "Abuse of Women," "Against Hasty Marriage," "A Young and Henpecked Husband's Complaint," and many others.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> "<a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/copyrght.htm">All TEAMS texts are under copyright,</a> whether in hard copy or in electronic form. The on-line texts provided here are meant for individual use only. To download and make multiple copies for course use, you must have permission from the managing editor of <a href="http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/mip/about.htm" target="top">Medieval Institute Publications</a>." <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Although it has not occasioned too much commentary, the Wife of Bath's Tale is Chaucer's only nod toward the Arthurian tradition ("In th'olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour . . . ," D.857).  There are a number of good online sources dedicated to the Arthurian tradition.  See, for example: <ul> <li>The <a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm">Camelot Project </a>(Russell Peck, URochester) for  <ul> <li>The Alliterative Morte Arthure <li>Annales Cambriae (Annals of Wales), Arthurian References in (c. 960-980) <li>The Avowyng of Arthur <li>The Awntyrs off Arthur <li>The Carle of Carlisle <li>Culwch and Olwen (translated by Lady Charlotte Guest as Kilhwch and Olwen) <li>The Greene Knight <li>The Jeaste of Sir Gawain <li>King Arthur and King Cornwall <li>The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain <li>Lancelot of the Laik <li>The Marriage of Sir Gawain <li>Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle <li>Sir Perceval of Galles <li>Sir Tristrem <li>Stanzaic Morte Arthur <li>The Turke and Sir Gawain <li>The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle <li>A selection of post medieval-Arthurian literature [Tennyson, Emerson, Swinbourne and so on.] </li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="http://www.smu.edu/arthuriana/teaching/">The Arthurian Pedagogy Page</a>, sponsored by Arthuriana (the professional organization dedicated to Arthurian studies) and maintained by Alan Baragona (VMI). This excellent site includes materials for those teaching in  <ul> <li><a href="http://www.smu.edu/arthuriana/teaching/kinder.html">Pre-School & Kindergarten</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.smu.edu/arthuriana/teaching/elementary.html">Elementary School</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.smu.edu/arthuriana/teaching/midschool.html">Middle School</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.smu.edu/arthuriana/teaching/highschool.html">High School</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.smu.edu/arthuriana/teaching/undergrad.html">Undergraduate School</a> </li> <li><a href="http://www.smu.edu/arthuriana/teaching/graduate.html">Graduate School</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Just for a treat, here's the script to the famous <a href="http://faculty.smu.edu/bwheeler/kinga/mpgrail.txt">Monty Python and the Holy Grail</a>, a much wiser movie than many know. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Jack Lynch (UPennsylvania) has excerpted a portion of Jerome's <a href="gopher://dept.english.upenn.edu:70/00/Courses/Lynch3/jerome">Adversus Jovinianum</a> (Against Jovinian).  This pro-virginity text, in which Jerome cites Theofrastus, is essential to understanding the Wife and her Prologue. See also Lynch's selected <a href="gopher://dept.english.upenn.edu:70/11/Courses/Lynch3/Bible">Biblical Passages on Women</a> and <a href="gopher://dept.english.upenn.edu:70/11/Courses/Lynch3/Lyrics">Medieval Lyrics on Women</a>. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Christy Desmet (UGeorgia) has excerpted a portion of "<a href="http://virtual.park.uga.edu/cdesmet/wife.htm">Holy Maidenhod</a>," a treatise on the virtues of virginity. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> What would the Wife make of Andreas Capellanus's <a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/andreas/de_amore.html">The Art of Courtly Love</a>? <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> A thematically important concept in the Wife's tale is "gentilesse," particularly in the "pillow speech" where the old woman instructs the reticent knight who grudgingly married her.  Read Chaucer's poem of the same name, "<a href="http://liberty.uc.wlu.edu/~hblackme/eng301/gentilesse.html">Gentilesse</a>." <big>5.  Online Notes & Commentary </big> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Discussion and links concerning the <a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/wbpro/">Wife of Bath's Prologue</a> and the <a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/wbt/">Wife of Bath's Tale</a> (two separate webpages) on Larry D. Benson's superlative <a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/">Geoffrey Chaucer Page</a> (Harvard). Includes e-texts of scholarly essays, sources and ancillary texts, and capsule discussions of key issues. Some of the items related to the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale include:<ul> <li><a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/wbpro/index.html">General Note on the Wife of Bath</a></li> <li>Dante's <a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/dante/dante-co.html">Canzone, Tractate IV</a> and the discussion of nobility (analogue)</li> <li>John Dryden, <a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/dryden/dry-wbt.html">"The Wife of Bath, Her Tale"</a> (translation and adaptation)</li> <li>John Gower's <a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/gower/gow-flor.html">Confessio Amantis, Book II, lines 1407-1882</a>:  The Tale of Florent (analogue)</li> <li><a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/litsubs/romances/wedding.html">The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell</a> (analogue)</li> <li>See also the extensive exerpts from Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum (Against Jovinian)</li> </ul> <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"><img border="0" src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11">  L. Kip Wheeler's <a href="http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Le%20Roman%20de%20La%20Rose.pdf">The Wife of Bath and Excerpts from Le Roman de la Rose</a> (Carson-Newman College). See also his <a href="http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Arthur.pdf">Arthuriana: Summary of the Welsh Tradition</a>. Both .pdf files. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <a href="http://cc.owu.edu/~o5medww/index.html">Medieval Women Writers</a> (Laurie Churchill, Ohio Wesleyan U) provides resources for women writing in Latin, Occitan, & French. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11">  <a href="http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol15/goodman.html">The Female Spellcaster in Middle English Romances: Heretical Outsider or Political Insider?</a> by Barbara A. Goodman discusses shape shifting females in Middle English in terms that are applicable to the Hag in the Wife's Tale. Essays in Medieval Studies 15 (1998): 45-55. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> At one point in her Prologue, the Wife is interrupted by the Pardoner, who calls her "a noble prechour in this cas" (III [D] 165), and Claire Waters has written of <a href="http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol14/waters.html">Dangerous Beauty, Beautiful Speech: Gendered Eloquence in Medieval Preaching</a>, Essays in Medieval Studies 14 (1997): online.  <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Jennifer Estaris (UPenn) has put together a lovely and informative website dedicated to Dame Alice herself.  <a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jestaris/bath.htm">The Wife of Bath Page</a> includes notes, images, and a number of student essays. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Mary Anne Andrade (Collin County Community College District) has provided  brief online notes for her literature classes, including <a href="http://jade.ccccd.edu/Andrade/BritLitI2322/WifeofBath-Augustine.html">The Wife of Bath and Augustinian Interpretation</a> (notes from D.W. Robertson's famous A Preface to Chaucer). <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Dan Mosser's course syllabus, "<a href="http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/exper/mosser/classes/4784.f98/4784.html">On the Road with the Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe</a>" (Virginia Tech), presents a creative blend of literary investigation and historical inquiry and is a model for new approaches to one of Chaucer's most popular Canterbury pilgrims. <big>6.  Online Articles & Books</big> <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> From the <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/scan/">University of California Press's E-Scholarship</a> initiative come these titles related to the Wife, her Prologue, and her tale:  <ul> <li>Bloch, R. Howard, and Frances Ferguson, eds. <cite><a href="http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft809nb586&query=&brand=ucpress">Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy</a>. (</cite>Berkeley: U of California P, 1989). <ul> <li><a href="http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft809nb586&chunk.id=d0e172&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e172&brand=ucpress">Medieval Misogyny</a></li> </ul> </li> <li>Hall, Edwin. <a href="http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft1d5nb0d9&query=&brand=ucpress">The Arnolfini Betrothal: Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of Van Eyck's Double Portrait</a>. (Berkeley: U of California P, 1997). </li> <li>Hanson, Elaine Tuttle.<a href="http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft2s2004t2&query=&brand=ucpress">Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender</a>. (Berkeley: U of California P, 1992). </li> <li>Solterer, Helen. <a href="http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft1t1nb1fx&query=&brand=ucpress"> The Master and Minerva: Disputing Women in French Medieval Culture</a>. (Berkeley: U of California P, 1995). </li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" WIDTH="11" HEIGHT="11"> See Susan K. Hagen's e-text, "<a href="http://panther.bsc.edu/~shagen/todwob.htm">Reading the Wife of Bath by the Light of Madonna or An Anachronistic Post-Modern Reading of a Post-Medieval Text</a>" (Birmingham Southern U).   <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" WIDTH="11" HEIGHT="11"> <a href="http://icg.harvard.edu/~laa14/sourcebook.html">Chaucer Sourcebook</a>, from the Harvard Chaucer Page, offers a number of classic and professional essays from noted Chaucerians, including:<ul> <li>George Lyman Kittredge, "<a href="http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/franklin/marriage.html">Chaucer's Discussion of Marriage</a>," Modern Philology 9 (1911-1912): 435-67.   Perhaps one of the most important articles in all of Chaucer studies, it set the debate concerning "the marriage group."</li> <li>David Aers, ""<a href="http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~laa14/sourcebook/love-aer.htm">Chaucer: Love, Sex and Marriage</a>," from Chaucer, Langland, and the Creative Imagination, 1980 pp. 143-70.</li> <li>Mary Carruthers, "<a href="http://icg.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/wbpro/carruth.htm">The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions</a>," PMLA 94 (1979): 209-22. </li> <li>All articles on the Harvard Chaucer Page reprinted by permission.</li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <a href="http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/">Essays in Medieval Studies</a> features full-text articles from the proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association, online version edited by Allen J. Frantzen (Loyola - Chicago), including:<ul> <li>Barbara A. Goodman, <a href="http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol15/goodman.html">"The Female Spell-caster in Middle English Romances: Heretical Outsider or Political Insider."</a>   Essays in Medieval Studies 15 (1998): 45-55.</li> <li>Watt, William. "<a href="http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol8/watts.html">Glossing as a Mode of Literary Production: Post - Modernism in the Middle Ages</a>." Essays in Medieval Studies 8 (1991): 59-65. </li> <li>Goodman, Thomas A. "'The nakid text': 'Glosynge' as Distortion." Essays in Medieval Studies 5 (1988).</li> <li>Cite online articles as web documents. </li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Anniina Jokkinen's <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucessays.htm">Essays and Articles on Chaucer</a> includes a links to a number professional essays, including: <ul> <li>Nelson, Marie. <a href="http://www.geocities.com/growonder/chaucermarriage.html">"'Biheste is dette': Marriage Promises in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales."</a> Papers on Language and Literature 38.2 (2002), np.</li> </ul> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> R.A. Shoaf's online postprint Dante, Chaucer, and the Currency of the Word devotes Chapter 11 to <a href="http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rashoaf/currency/eleven.html">The Wife of Bath and the Mediation of 'Privitee</a>' <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11">  <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/9976/chaucer5.html">"Hooly Chirche," the Sacrament of Marriage, and Thematic Finalization in the Canterbury Tales</a> (Frederick Martin, Tulane U), from an ongoing e-project melding critical and cultural theory & medieval studies. See Martin's e-dissertation in progress, <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/9976/pilgrima.html">Pilgrimage in the Age of Schism: Chaucer, Sociological Poetics, and the Canterbury Tales</a>. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11">  Susan K. Hagen has written <a href="http://panther.bsc.edu/~shagen/todwob.htm">Reading the Wife of Bath by the Light of Madonna or An Anachronistic Post-Modern Reading of a Post-Medieval Text</a> (Birmingham Southern College). <big>7.  Student Projects & Essays</big> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <a href="http://library.advanced.org/12834/index.html">Dominion & Domination of the Gentle Sex:  The Lives of Medieval Women</a> (Thinkquest) includes some oversimplification, but is a nicely done student website. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Read the interesting graduate student essay by Meg Roland, a student of John Coldewey's at the University of Washington, entitled, <a href="http://students.washington.edu/mroland/wife.html">"Multimodality:  A Visual/Textual Reading of the Ellesmere Wife of Bath,"</a> which reads the Wife as both text and image in the Ellesmere manuscript. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" WIDTH="15" HEIGHT="8"> Dene Scoggins' <a href="http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~scoggins/316british/">English 316</a> site (UT Austin) explores "culture, ideology, and issues of canonicity" in the Canterbury Tales, including a student developed page devoted to the <a href="http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~scoggins/316british/wifeofbath/index.html">Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale</a>. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Susan Yager's English 451:  Seminar in Chaucer (Iowa State) put together a hypertext <a href="http://www.public.iastate.edu/~syager/Sp98cover.html">Collaborative Project on the Wife of Bath</a> in Spring 1998. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Anniina Jokkinen's <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucessays.htm">Essays and Articles on Chaucer</a> includes a number student essays.  Like any other source, student essays must be evaluated rigorously, cited correctly, and  used responsibly.  8.  <a href="http://afdtk.uaa.alaska.edu/index.htm#bibl">Online Bibliography</a> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> An outstanding and wide ranging database, the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship's <a href="http://www.haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/mfi/mfi.html">Medieval Feminist Index</a> (UIowa) will lead you to a number of studies related to the Wife of Bath, her Prologue, and her Tale. <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"> <a href="http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/womenbib.htm">Bibliography of Works by and about Women Writers of the Middle Ages</a> (Juliet Sloger, U of Rochester) is a handy listing of pertinent works.  9.  <a href="http://afdtk.uaa.alaska.edu/index.htm#syll">Syllabi & Course Descriptions</a> 10.  Images & Multimedia <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"> See <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/elles.htm">the Wife of Bath's Portrait from the Ellesmere Manuscript</a>, one of the two earliest compilations of the Canterbury Tales (Huntington Library, San Marino, California via Anniina Jokinen's <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucer.htm">Luminarium</a>). <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <img border="0" src="newrite.gif" width="32" height="13"> See Anniina Jokinen's excellent photo essay, <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/wifimg.htm">The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale in Images</a> (Luminarium). <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> The <a href="http://www.cup.org/Chaucer/ctptop.html">Canterbury Tales Project</a> has made available three manuscript images upon which it drew for the <a href="http://www.cup.org/Chaucer/ctpblurb.html#Firstrel">Wife of Bath's Prologue on CD-ROM</a>:<ul> <li><a href="http://www.cup.org/Chaucer/Sample200.GIF">The Opening of the Wife's Prologue</a> (.gif format, 179k)</li> <li>The same <a href="http://www.cup.org/Chaucer/Sample200.JPEG">Opening of the Wife's Prologue</a> (.jpg format, 70k)</li> <li>The <a href="http://www.cup.org/Chaucer/Sample2.GIF">End of the Prologue with Wife of Bath's Portrait</a> (b&w, .gif. 22k)</li> </ul> 11.  Language Helps & Audio Files <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Sample audio files (.wav, .au, .aiff) from the <a href="http://english.byu.edu/chaucer/">Wife of Bath's Tale</a>, recorded at the 9th International Congress of the New Chaucer Society, Trinity College, Dublin, 1994, are available from the Chaucer Studio (Paul Thomas, Brigham Young). <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> The <a href="http://web.wwnorton.com/nael-audio/">Wife of Bath's Prologue</a> (2.5 Mb .wav) read by Marie Boroff (Yale) at the <a href="http://web.wwnorton.com/nael/">Norton Anthology of English Literature website</a>. 12. Potpourri <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> Applying scientific methodologies derived from genetics to the Wife of Bath's Prologue, a group of scholars and scientists claim that <a href="http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/pr/1998082601.html">Evolutionary Biology Unlocks the Secrets of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales</a>.  Interesting, no doubt, but hardly the final word. See the related <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_159000/159352.stm">BBC report.</a> 13.  <a href="http://afdtk.uaa.alaska.edu/next.htm">The Next Step</a>   <hr> <img src="note6326.gif" alt="note6326.gif (244 bytes)" width="32" height="32"> <big>How to Document</big> <big>Print & Electronic Sources: <a href="http://afdtk.uaa.alaska.edu/docprimer.htm">The Chaucer Pedagogy Documentation Primer</a></big> <hr> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="704" height="80" colspan="3" bgcolor="#808080" align="center"><a href="http://afdtk.uaa.alaska.edu/pedagogy.htm">Chaucer Pedagogy</a> | <a href="http://afdtk.uaa.alaska.edu/index.htm">The Electronic Canterbury Tales</a> | <a href="http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/">Chaucer Metapage</a>  © 1998-2005 <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> <a href="mailto:afdtk@uaa.alaska.edu">Daniel T. Kline</a> & <a href="http://afdtk.uaa.alaska.edu/kanke.htm#top">The Kankedort Page</a> <img src="SquiggleE0A5.gif" width="15" height="11"> All rights reserved This page was last revised on 12.04.06. </td> </tr> </table> </div> </body> </html>