The Wife of Bath, Alisoun—one of only three female tellers on the pilgrimage—is perhaps one of the most debated of the pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer’s

. She appears primarily in her own

and

(Fragment III) as well as in the

, lines 445-76, where some of the more noteworthy aspects of her married life and physical appearance are detailed, but she is also alluded to in other tales, such as the

and the

. She has been married five times, is a well-traveled pilgrim as well as a cloth-maker, is gap-toothed, and an extravagant dresser. These attributes are further detailed in her own

and

, the former of which is over 800 lines, the latter over 300 lines, a balance atypical of the tales and prologues in

2688 words

Citation: Obermeier, Anita. "The Wife of Bath's Tale". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 November 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19955, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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