Criticism > Poetry > The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer - Mary Carruthers (essay date March 1985)

The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer - Mary Carruthers (essay date March 1985)

Mary Carruthers (essay date March 1985)

SOURCE: Carruthers, Mary. “Clerk Jankyn At Hom to Bord / With My Gossib.” English Language Notes 22, no. 3 (March 1985): 11-20.

[In the following essay, Carruthers refutes many commonly held assertions about the nature of the Wife of Bath's relationship with Jankyn. By analyzing fourteenth-century English usage, Carruthers identifies Jankyn as the relative of a close friend (one who is godparent to one of Alisoun's children), not as a stranger who merely boards in town. Through this interpretation, Carruthers argues, the Wife's change from manipulating spouse to manipulated spouse has richer irony.]

In her fond description of past jolitee, the Wife of Bath recalls with particular pleasure her young fifth husband:

He som tyme was a clerk of Oxenford,
And hadde left scole, and wente at hom to bord
With my gossib, dwellynge in oure toun;
God have hir soule! hir name was...

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