Discuss wife of bath as a feminist
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“Wife of Bath: feminist or no?” is an essay question every English teacher must ask at least once, lest they invoke the ancient magic that swallows our world in darkness. I was an English major with a focus on medieval literature (I’m fun at parties, I swear), so I think I wrote this exact essay upwards of four times.
For the uninitiated, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales about a ragtag group of misfit pilgrim people swapping stories on their journey to see the shrine of Thomas Beckett. One such storyteller was the Wife of Bath. She opened with a rollicking prologue chock full of explicit personal anecdotes (as well as some of the filthiest Middle English euphemisms you’ve ever heard in your LIFE) before launching into a tale about a pillaging knight. 600 years later, sleep-deprived students were forced to write essays about her.