δάσκαλος

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue is one of the most remarkable dramatic explorations of marriage, sexuality, religious authority and female self-assertion in medieval English literature. In the first 162 lines, the Wife establishes the principles that govern her entire argument. She begins by placing experience above “auctoritee”, or written authority, insisting that her own life as a woman married five times gives her sufficient knowledge to speak about marriage. From this startin...