The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale: Original Text and Translation Into Modern English (Thrifty Classic Literature)

By Geoffrey Chaucer

Book Overview

The Canterbury Tales recounts the stories told by pilgrims to one another as they make their way from London to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. This volume contains the Wife of Bath's Tale - a story which despite its bawdy reputation, tells a profoundly tragic tale of how women were treated in thirteenth century England. Indeed, many consider that Alison speaks with a voice that is still shockingly relevant to the lives of some modern-day women. This edition is particularly suited for High School and College/ University students. Here, the odd-numbered pages contain Chaucer's original text written in Middle English. Alongside, there is plenty of room in the wide outer margins for students to make translation notes of The Wife of Bath's Tale, or perhaps, to define unfamiliar key words. The even-numbered pages contain a new translation into modern English which differs slightly from those found elsewhere. Here, the key difference is that each line is translated separately, and thereby avoids the problem seen in some translations that words are borrowed from adjacent lines to help maintain Chaucer's rhyming structure. Accordingly, this translation adheres very closely to Chaucer's own words; although, in doing so, it may occasionally become slightly more descriptive than is usual in other translations, and that there are some sections where Chaucer's original couplets no longer rhyme. Nevertheless, this 'word for word' approach has been employed with the express purpose of assisting those readers who new to Chaucer's middle English. In some circumstances, a direct translation into modern English may not always improve a reader's understanding of the storyline. In these cases, a word or phrase will have been added to the original text - but any such additions are always clearly marked in square brackets [ ].Readers will be pleased that the present translation of the Wife of Bath's Tale has substituted any offensive references to female genitalia with much more acceptable descriptions. This volume contains the complete and unabridged text (with line numbers), an accurate translation and a personal study notebook - which means it offers excellent value for money.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 197644103X
• ISBN13: 9781976441035
• Release Date: September 2017
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Literary Criticism for The Wife of Bath

This book has historical context; The Wife's prologue and tale; New Historicism Criticism regarding The Wife; Marxism and Psychoanalytic Criticism; and Deconstruction and Feminist Criticism. For anyone doing a paper, class, or any type of study regarding The Wife of Bath, this is an excellent book to have. It is easy to read and understand. You get to view the Wife of Bath from 5 different critical perspectives and each chapter ends with a Works Cited page which is an excellent reference for further research.

An Excellent Book about the Wife of Bath!

I recommend this book to anybody interested in Sir Geoffrey Chaucer's Wife of Bath or the Canterbury Tales. The essays and articles are insightful, well-written, and extremely thought provoking. If you are a fan or a student studying the Canterbury Tales and you need to read more about the Wife of Bath, this is the book for you. I love the style and design of the book. It is well structured and organized. No other book out there covers the Wife of Bath like this book.

Great survey of criticism on Wife of Bath

Beilder takes a whirlwind review of the world of Chaucer criticism. In his introduction, Beidler shows the reader the many levels of thought that are still occuring about Chaucer to this very day.