All Program Dates
October 8, 2026 | 6:00pm - 8:00pm
October 22, 2026 | 6:00pm - 8:00pm
November 5, 2026 | 6:00pm - 8:00pm
November 19, 2026 | 6:00pm - 8:00pm
December 3, 2026 | 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Registration
Tuition for this course is $300. Members receive exclusive discounts on our programs and courses. Not a member? Learn more.
Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email rsvp@rosenbach.org.
This program is for those 18 and older.
To promote access to onsite and virtual Rosenbach experiences, we offer scholarships for each Signature Program. To inquire, email Sunstein Senior Manager of Digital Initiatives Edward G. Pettit at epettit@rosenbach.org.
Registration opens for Delancey Society members on Thursday, August 27, for Rosenbach members on Thursday, September 3, and for the general public on Thursday, September 10.
Description
Chaucer wrote his poetry to be read aloud, and the Wife of Bath is the loudest, and most famous, of his Canterbury pilgrims. She simply starts talking, without invitation, and does not stop, even though men try to break in. She is a successful clothmaker and businesswoman, and by accumulating wealth through five marriages, has achieved considerable power and independence. She can make any man, by providing the working capital he needs to become a citizen of London, provided that he can keep pace sexually, and marries her. She may have murdered her fourth husband; her fifth was an Oxford cleric, and from him she learned many tales from the Bible and the Classics from which to fashion her own arguments. She is formidable (French pronunciation), a feminist icon who has inspired performers and scholars such as Patience Agbabi and Jean Binta Breeze, Marion Turner and Caroline Bergvall. Above all, she must be heard aloud, and in this class we will learn how Middle English is to be read, and sounded out, just as it was in the 14th century. Everyone takes turns to read aloud; no prior experience required. We will also consider those tales that immediately follow the Wife in the Canterbury Tales sequence: those of the Friar and Summoner. But the Wife is the main event.
Instructor
David Wallace has been Judith Rodin Professor of English & Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania since 1996, and in 2026 became Honorary Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge (where he was a grad student). His first job was at the Karl-Marx-Universität, Leipzig, and he has since taught at Stanford, Texas, Minnesota, Princeton, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem (twice). He has served as President of the Medieval Academy of America, and of the New Chaucer Society, and was awarded the Sir Israel Gollancz Prize of the British Academy in 2019. His current research project, for Oxford University Press, is National Epics, which has an interactive website: nationalepics.com. He teaches National Epics at Penn every spring, encouraging undergrads to connect the grand narratives of nations with the equally astonishing sagas of their own family history. He travels and talks frequently for Penn Alumni Travel and has previously taught Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at the Rosenbach; he lives three blocks away.