The Wife of Bath's Tale

Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale

• is an Arthurian legend related to the "loathly lady" tradition
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight also features an old crone, Morgan le Fay, who is in charge of the games at Bercilak's castle.
• has a plot suited to its teller
  • The Wife has been called a "feminist" and her tale gives women "legal and magical power" (Longman, 330) over men.
    • Guenever and her ladies determine the knight's punishment.
    • That punishment is to determine what it is that women want most--
      • "'Wommen desire to have sovereinetee/As wel over hir housbonde as hir love,/And for to been in maistrye him above'"(352, lines 1044-6).
    • The knight must love and marry the old crone in order to find the answer to his question.
    • In order to win a beautiful wife, the knight must allow the crone to decide her own fate.
  • The tale discredits knighthood by opening with a knight who is a common rapist.