The Wife of Bath and the Pardoner are both given particularly ample space to expose their own way of living before telling their Tales, in developed Prologues which have certain qualities in common. In both cases, the speaker seems unaware that the hearers (the readers) might not be so full of admiration as they seem to be about themselves. Both speak in a rather boasting mode about lives and actions which others might find less than appealing. The Pardoner's Prologue is less lengthy than the Wife of Bath's but serves to provide a powerfully ....