The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the greatest works
in English of the late fourteenth century. He was an outstanding English poet and began to
work on The Canterbury Tales in about 1387. He describes a pilgrimage of 30 people,
who are going to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The poet joins
the pilgrims, vividly described in the "General Prologue," who gather at the
Tabard Inn outside London for the journey to Canterbury. On their route to Canterbury they
tell stories to amuse themselves. Each pilgrim tells the others stories about greed,
jealousy, and tricksters, among other subjects. The Canterbury Tales reflects
medieval society: there are feudal, urban, ecclesiastical, and middle-class characters
such as a cook, carpenter, miller, priest, monk, prioress, pardoner, lawyer, merchant,
clerk, and physician.
One of Chaucer's characters, the Wife of Bath describes her reaction to the
patriarchal society; she most grabbed my attention. As we can see in the description of
her life, marriage is the most important issue to her. She wears fine scarlet red
stockings and kerchiefs that weigh ten pounds on her head. She has been married five times
and is now seeking her sixth husband. Chaucer describes her as a great weaver. She
strongly desires controling over her marriages, presumably because of her lack of control
in the financial arena. The Wife of Bath needs a lot of attention since she thinks she is
a God's gift for men.
To learn more about the Wife of Bath, click on one of the links.
CHARACTER
ANALYSIS
HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
IMAGE
MAP
WORKS
CITED
Another interesting links 
Life
of Chaucer Text
of Wife of Bath in Modern English
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