Fascinating quotation,
Squatter old chap.
It tickles the funny bone to see Tolkien imagining Chaucer in his--Tolkien's--own image. Tolkopomorphism anyone?
On the other hand, it is equally a good tickle to know that The Wife of Bath shares more than a few characteristics with the well-known stock character figure in medieval literature: the
cockwold.
(To say nothing about the hilarious irony of using the blundering narrator's agreement with the worldly monk who perverts his monastic ideal--and whose tale is a poor version of Boccacio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium." Chaucer had so much fun making his character the worst story teller. Oh, by gosh and by golly, I am taking a witty salvo too seriously. )
Some writers will do anything for a private giggle.
