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‘Thanne Have I Gete of Yow Maistrie’: Power and the Subversive Body in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath

‘Thanne Have I Gete of Yow Maistrie’: Power and the Subversive Body in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath

By Laura Alexander

Hortulus: The Online Community for Graduate Students in Medieval Studies, Vol. 1 (2005)

Abstract: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales have long fascinated scholars who explore representations of gender, marriage, and power within this canonical work. This article argues that the Wife represents more than a transversal of power in marriage from men to women based on sexual prowess, but rather the Prologue and the Tale can be read as a proposal for a redefinition of marriage and the power distribution within it.

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