Essay Archive - Sir Gawain And The Wife Of Bath
Sir Gawain And The Wife Of Bath
Chaucer's Tale of the Wife of Bath, the lead tale of the so-called "marriage group", is a Gawain story standing amongst the latter versions of a group of analogues which in the main incorporate two chief motifs, viz., that of the Transformed Hag (Loathly Lady) and that of the hero's fate depending upon his answer to a baffling problem. There is perhaps a third motif common to all, that of the hero's being tested for some quality of which he himself is unaware. I call it a Gawain story because of its close parallels with the well-known W....
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