>Actually, the Canterbury Tales, Knight's Tale, rhymes like a white sword
>rap.
And it's full of obscenity too! I wonder how the Trad Vals types deal with the fact that so much canonical literature is full of sex and sexuality, and not always of the plain vanilla kind.
Doug
^^^^^
CB; The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale deals with feminist issues. Sovereignty in marriage is a major theme. Also, experience over scholarship.
The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Wife of Bath's Tale is a tale from Geoffrey Chaucer <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer> 's The Canterbury Tales <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales> .
The Wife of Bath <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath> is one of Chaucer's most interesting characters. Not only does she give an insight into the role of women <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women> in the Late Middle Ages she is obviously of interest to Chaucer himself. She is one of his most developed characters, with her prologue twice as long as her tale and she holds her own among the bickering pilgrims. There is also evidence in the manuscripts to suggest she was first assigned a different, plainer, tale-perhaps the one told by the Shipman <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shipman%27s_Tale> -but received her present tale as her significance increased. She calls herself both Alyson and Alys in the prologue but to confuse matters these are also the names of her 'gossib' (a close friend or gossip) who she mentions several times.
Contents
* 1 Prologue <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wife_of_Bath's_Prologue_and_Tale#Prologue>
* 2 The Wife of Bath's Tale <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wife_of_Bath's_Prologue_and_Tale#The_Wife_ of_Bath.27s_Tale> * 3 Themes <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wife_of_Bath's_Prologue_and_Tale#Themes> * 4 External links <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wife_of_Bath's_Prologue_and_Tale#External_ links>
Prologue
The Wife of Bath believes herself to be an expert on the relations between men and women, having had five husbands <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husband> herself, beginning with her first marriage at age 12. She provides a brief history and defends her many marriages with biblical citations, though they are frequently misquoted. She also expands on the status of virginity, claiming that virginity is not necessary to be a good and virtuous person, and asks the rhetorical question of what genitals <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitals> are for if not for procreation? She is both direct and opinionated, mostly involving the futility of men attempting to gain sovereignty or domination over women, and her opinions prepare the reader for her tale, a breton lai <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_lai> about the role of sovereignty in marriage.
The tales is often regarded as the first of the so-called "marriage group" of tales which includes the Clerk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clerk%27s_Prologue_and_Tale> 's, the Merchant <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant%27s_Prologue_and_Tale> 's and the Franklin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Franklin%27s_Prologue_and_Tale> 's tales. But this grouping is contested by some, not least because the later tales of Melibee <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Melibee> and the Nun's Priest <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nun%27s_Priest%27s_Tale> also discuss this theme. A separation between tales which deal with moral issues and ones that deal with magical issues, as the Wife of Bath's does, is favoured by some scholars.
Much of the Wife of Bath's prologue is an argument that the authority of experience outweighs the authority of texts, scripture, and tradition. She posits that her experience makes her eminently suited to tell a tale of women and their true desire, and her tale can be seen as a refutation of the way women have been "glossed" by earlier male writers. Chaucer clearly intends both to poke fun at the Wife of Bath's incomplete understanding of the sources she uses and to show her spunk and native intelligence.
The Wife of Bath's Tale
Spoiler warning <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spoiler_warning> : Plot and/or ending details follow.
Her tale begins with an allusion to the absence of fairies in modern day, and their prevalence in King Arthur's time, then begins her tale, though she interrupts and is interrupted several times, creating several digressions. A knight in King Arthur <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur> 's Court rapes a woman. By law, his punishment is death, but the queen intercedes on his behalf, and the king turns the knight over to her for judgement. The queen punishes the knight by sending him out on a quest to find out what women want, giving him a year and a day to discover it and having his word that he will return. If he fails to satisfy the queen with his answer, he forfeits his life. He searches but every woman he finds says something different, from riches to flattery.
On his way back to the queen after failing to find the truth, he sees four and twenty ladies dancing. They disappear suddenly, leaving behind an old hag and he asks for her help. She says she'll tell him what to tell to the queen and save him if he promises to grant her request at a time she chooses. He agrees and they go back to the court and he is pardoned after he tells them that what women want most is "to have the sovereignty as well upon their husband as their love, and to have mastery their man above". The old woman cries out to him before the court that she saved him and that her reward will be that he takes her as his wife and loves her. He protests, but to no avail, and the marriage takes place the next day.
The old woman and the knight converse about the knight's happiness in their marriage bed and discuss that he is unhappy because she is ugly and low-born. She discourses upon the origins of gentility, as told by Jesus <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus> and Dante <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri> and reflects on the origins of poverty. She says he can choose between her being ugly and faithful or beautiful and unfaithful. He gives the choice to her to become whatever would bring the most honour and happiness to them both and she, pleased with her mastery of her husband, becomes fair and faithful to live with him happily until the end of their days.
We wommen han, if that I shal nat lye,
In this matere a queynte fantasye:
Wayte what thyng we may nat lightly have,
Therafter wol we crie al day and crave.
Forbede us thyng, and that desiren we;
Preesse on us faste, and thanne wol we fle.
Themes
The tale utilizes the "loathly lady <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loathly_lady> " motif, the oldest examples of which are the medieval Irish sovereignty myths like that of Niall of the Nine Hostages <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_of_the_Nine_Hostages> . Other works of the time, such as Sir Gawain <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain> and Dame Ragnell contains essentially the same story. The usual formula is simply that the woman will be a hag during the day and a beautiful woman at night. Where Chaucer differs from these stories is the initial rape and his emphasis on faithfulness and the redemptive decision of the knight. The knight's decision of faithfulness or fairness, his choice of the most honourable option, and then his eventual reward for making right choice, displays his chivalrous <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivalrous> nature. Both the tale and the Wife of Bath's prologue deal with the question of who has control in relationships between men and women.
As for Alyson herself, she is an example of the character of the bawdy women who was, and remains, very popular. There are clear parallels with La Vieille from The Romance of the Rose <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Romance_of_the_Rose> which Chaucer had recently translated although Alyson is a distinctly Chaucerian character. Critics are divided on the personality of the Wife of Bath. Some see her as a strong independent woman while others regard her as a terrible old harridan <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/harridan> . This view not helped by subtle hints in the text that she may have murdered her fourth husband. Chaucer was taking inspiration from a significant amount of antifeminist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifeminist> literature around at the time but it is far from clear whether he is copying these sentiments or slyly lampooning them.
External links
* Read "The Wife of Bath's Tale" in middle or modern english <http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/wife.htm> * Read "The Wife of Bath's Tale" with interlinear translation <http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/wbt-par.htm>