Book #49

The Wife of Bath by Geoffrey Chaucer

One of the most bawdy, entertaining and popular stories from The Canterbury Tales. 

Earlier this year I made an attempt on The Canterbury Tales, and quickly realised this valiant endeavour wasn't bringing me any joy. Having The Wife of Bath in the Little Black Classics range, I felt, would ease me in gently and possibly alleviate any feelings of hatred towards the entire work. I fool myself like this often.

I know it's not that I'm wary of a classic challenge. Is it my irrevocable incapacity to appreciate poetry? Who knows. I didn't enjoy it. I should've loved it due to the examination of this medieval female, who seems to actually relish in recounting the tales of her five marriages; she pays no heed to the social expectations of the time, has entirely no shame, and details some of her sex life brazenly.

Would I have appreciated this more as prose? Yes. Is it just me and my steeled poetry brain-blocker? Probably.