Question

In "the wife of bath's prologue" the friar complains about the wife of bath's long, rambling preamble. How effective is she at narrating her tale about the knight?

Answer 1

"The Wife of Bath's Prologue" is a part of The Canterbury Tales in which a female character tells us about marriage, a topic that, according to her, she is an expert on, as she has been remarried five times. The widow differs considerably from the ideal woman of medieval times. However, she is aware of it and she tries to justify her actions in the Preamble.

The speech is extremely long. It serves more as an autobiography, or a collection of musings. The prologue, in fact, is twice as long as the tale itself. However, once she has finished her preamble, she is very effective at telling her tale. In fact, the preamble and the tale complement each other, as the preamble sets the stage for the tale to be able to question issues of marriage, sexuality and gender inequality that are present in the tale.