Additional Information:
Kick’s book includes a wide range of canonical texts, each illustrated by a different artist. The selection from the Canterbury Tales is the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale, illustrated by Seymour Chwast. Chwast’s version is in black-and-white comic strip style, an amalgamation of the medieval and the modern. His version is updated in terms of language and some of the imagery – for example, the Wife of Bath sits astride a motorcycle, and she says of her fifth husband that “he beat me, but he was great in bed” (297). At the same time, castles and much of the clothing is meant to look medieval.