The wife of bath.

A worthy woman from beside Bath city
was with us, somewhat deaf, which was a pity.
In making cloth she showed so great a bent
she bettered those of Ypres and of Ghent.
In all the parish not a dame dared stir
towards the altar steps in front of her.
And if indeed they did, so wrath was she
as to be quite put out of charity.
Her kerchiefs were of finely woven ground,
I dared have sworn they weighed a good ten pound
the ones she wore on Sunday, on her head.
Her hose were of the finest scarlet red
and gartered tight; her shoes were soft and new.
Bold was her face, handsome and red in hue.
A worthy woman all her life, what's more
she's had five husbands, all at the church door,
apart from other company in youth;
no need just now to speak of that, forsooth.
And she had thrice been to Jerusalem,
seen many strange rivers and passed over them;
she's been to Rome and also to Boulogne,
St James of Compostella and Cologne,
and she was skilled in wandering by th way.
She had gap-teeth, set widely, truth to say.
Easily on an ambling horse she sat
well wimpled up, and on her head a hat
as broad as is a buckler or a shield;
she had a flowing mantle that concealed
large hips, her heels spurred sharply under that,
in company she liked to laugh and chat
and knew the remedies for love's mischances,
an art in which she knew the oldest dances.

The text belongs to the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales. With the use of the poetical language Geoffrey Chaucer introduces of the several pilgrim go to the shire of Thomas Becket in Canterbury.

The character in question is the wife of Bath decides to focus the reader attention on the social status of the marry woman. In addiction choosing a woman coming from Bath may imply that she came from a well none place.

In order to present the wife of Baths characteristics Geoffrey Chaucer resorts to different aspects of the woman personality but the stylistic he privileges is irony. This happens because he wants to criticise the excessive of the woman that in a way or other mode her ridiculer and last but not list surely unusual a wife of the Middle Ages.

Right from the start the narrator focuses the attention on a photo of the wife of Bath informing the reader that she is “somewhat deaf” such choice does not underline a virtue and even more important the first adjective he explodes in his presentation is “worthy”. The reader wants to find out why she is consider “a worthy woman” and he sons discovers that she was a skilled clothes maker.

The poet offend uses superlatives to underline her strong points but the intelligent reader can find out that she is the most superb and arrogant woman of the parish most as one would expect from religion wife of the period.

The narrator insist on telling that each somebody dears to go in front of there and not currently an example of “charity”.