The Wife of Bath’s Tale: A Canterbury Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer
A story told by literature’s first feminist
The Wife of Bath has to be Chaucer’s most remarkable character. She shares with Chaucer himself the distinction of being a pilgrim who represents no trade, profession or calling, but is there just as herself. She is not even representative of womanhood in general, because she is clearly a very unusual woman, in her own or any other era. Chaucer clearly sympathises with her general attitude to life, in that he gives her plenty of scope to express herself, but she also proves to be far from pleasant as an individual. It must be open to question whether Chaucer had a real person in mind when creating the Wife of Bath, as she seems to be too complex a personality to be the product of imagination alone.
The Prologue
The prologue to her tale, at 856 lines, is only two lines shorter than the whole of the General Prologue, and is, on its own, one of Chaucer’s most successful pieces of writing. It is a confession, an “apologia” and a programme for matrimonial reform, all rolled into one. The Wife creates herself as she talks: strong-willed, opinionated, highly sexed, frank, humorous and masterful.
We know from the General Prologue that this is a woman who has “been around a bit” in more…
