The Wife of Bath's Tale

E947388

Arthurian romance Canterbury Tale Middle English narrative poem frame tale episode

"The Wife of Bath's Tale" is one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a Middle English narrative in which a loquacious, worldly wife tells a story exploring female sovereignty, marriage, and gender roles.

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All labels observed (7)

Label	Occurrences
The Wife of Bath	1
The Wife of Bath's Prologue	1
The Wife of Bath's Tale canonical	1
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale (indirect reference to flitch custom)	1
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale (links)	1
The Wife of Bath’s Tale loathly lady	1
Wife of Bath’s Tale	1

How this entity was disambiguated

This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11808044 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.

NED1 Entity disambiguation (via context triple) gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07

Target entity: The Wife of Bath's Tale
Context triple: [The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, relatedWork, The Wife of Bath's Tale]

A. The Prioress's Tale
"The Prioress's Tale" is a deeply anti-Semitic miracle story within Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, recounting the murder of a devout Christian child and his posthumous, Marian-inspired miracle.
B. The Merchant's Tale
The Merchant's Tale is one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a darkly comic fabliau that satirizes marriage through the story of an old knight deceived by his young wife.
C. The Wife of Bath
The Wife of Bath is a comedic play by English dramatist John Gay, inspired by Chaucer’s famous Canterbury Tales character and exploring themes of marriage, gender, and social satire.
D. The Nun's Priest's Tale
The Nun's Priest's Tale is a comic beast fable within Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales that satirically explores themes of pride, fate, and flattery through the story of a rooster named Chauntecleer.
E. The Franklin's Tale
The Franklin's Tale is a Middle English Breton lai by Geoffrey Chaucer that explores themes of marriage, honor, and mutual respect through the story of a knight, his wife, and her admirer.
F. None of above. chosen
G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.

NED2 Entity disambiguation (via description) gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07

Target entity: The Wife of Bath's Tale
Target entity description: "The Wife of Bath's Tale" is one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a Middle English narrative in which a loquacious, worldly wife tells a story exploring female sovereignty, marriage, and gender roles.

A. The Prioress's Tale
"The Prioress's Tale" is a deeply anti-Semitic miracle story within Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, recounting the murder of a devout Christian child and his posthumous, Marian-inspired miracle.
B. The Merchant's Tale
The Merchant's Tale is one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a darkly comic fabliau that satirizes marriage through the story of an old knight deceived by his young wife.
C. The Wife of Bath
The Wife of Bath is a comedic play by English dramatist John Gay, inspired by Chaucer’s famous Canterbury Tales character and exploring themes of marriage, gender, and social satire.
D. The Nun's Priest's Tale
The Nun's Priest's Tale is a comic beast fable within Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales that satirically explores themes of pride, fate, and flattery through the story of a rooster named Chauntecleer.
E. The Franklin's Tale
The Franklin's Tale is a Middle English Breton lai by Geoffrey Chaucer that explores themes of marriage, honor, and mutual respect through the story of a knight, his wife, and her admirer.
F. None of above. chosen

Statements (49)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	Arthurian romance ⓘ Canterbury Tale ⓘ Middle English narrative poem ⓘ frame tale episode ⓘ
author	Geoffrey Chaucer ⓘ
contrastsWith	The Clerk's Tale ⓘ
countryOfOrigin	England ⓘ
embeddedStoryType	exemplum ⓘ
featuresCharacter	King Arthur ⓘ Queen Guinevere ⓘ old hag ⓘ unnamed knight ⓘ
fictionalNarrator	Alisoun ⓘ
firstPersonFrame	Wife of Bath ⓘ
follows	The Clerk's Tale ⓘ
form	rhymed couplets ⓘ
genre	courtly romance parody ⓘ fabliau-influenced romance ⓘ
influencedBy	courtly love conventions ⓘ medieval romance ⓘ
keyMotif	loathly lady ⓘ marital contract ⓘ quest for knowledge ⓘ transformation ⓘ
language	Middle English ⓘ
literaryMovement	Middle English literature ⓘ
literaryPeriod	Middle Ages ⓘ
literaryTradition	Arthurian legend ⓘ loathly lady tradition ⓘ
mainTheme	female sovereignty ⓘ gender roles ⓘ marriage ⓘ power dynamics in relationships ⓘ what women most desire ⓘ
meter	iambic pentameter (in modern pronunciation) ⓘ
moral	Mutual respect and granting power can lead to harmony in marriage. ⓘ Women desire sovereignty over their husbands and lovers. ⓘ
narrator	Wife of Bath ⓘ linked to: The Wife of Bath
notableAspect	early exploration of female agency in Western literature ⓘ ironic treatment of chivalry and courtly ideals ⓘ
partOf	The Canterbury Tales ⓘ
plotSummary	A knight who rapes a maiden is condemned to death but is given a year and a day to discover what women most desire in order to save his life. ⓘ An old woman provides the correct answer to the knight in exchange for marriage, then transforms into a young, faithful wife when he grants her sovereignty. ⓘ
precedes	The Friar's Tale ⓘ
relatedWork	The Wife of Bath's Prologue ⓘ linked to: The Wife of Bath's Tale
setting	Britain ⓘ linked to: Great Britain King Arthur's court ⓘ
studiedIn	English literature curricula ⓘ medieval literature courses ⓘ

How these facts were elicited