2. The Wife of Bath's Tale is considered by some critics to indicate that Chaucer may have been a feminist. Why might they believe this? Do you agree? Remember to cite evidence from the text or some other source.
3.Hahn's essay (see critical reader)on The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle identifies the motif of the loathly lady, but arguesit has a different purpose than asserting the feminine. What does he think the function of the story is?
4. In the context of Elizabethan and Jacobean sonnets, how can we define "conceits"?
5. Discuss what you think is the most striking or outrageous example.
6. What does Revard (1997) suggest about the relationship between language, sex, power and transgression in the English Renaissance?
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ReplyDelete1. Cite some variations in the Loathly Lady fabula across the three tales in your Reader. Focus on the conditions by which the lady is either beautiful or ugly, and the actions of the knight/king/"hero"...
The Wife Bath’s poem written by Geoffery Chaucer has the idea of the Loathly Lady fabula. This idea is used when the old lady saves the knights life and tells him she wants to marry him in exchange ““There can no man imagine an uglier creature.” (line 999.) but the Knights refuse but later agrees to marry her and be nice and in return she changes to a beautiful women. The Knight who had been an abuser of women was forced to seek aid from an old ugly lowborn woman when he could not solve the mystery on his own. The price of this aid placed him at her mercy and he, in turn, was forced to marry her although he was reluctant and repulsed by her. Although he tried to escape his horrid fate, when he complained of his miseries to his wife when she asked about his mood swings, he complained of her being super ugly and not good enough for his family and not of noble blood. She answers with logic and calmly rebuffs each concern:
“Very seldom grows up from its small branches
Nobility of man, for God, of his goodness,
Wants us to claim our nobility from him.”
“Thy nobility comes from God alone
Then our true nobility comes from grace
It was not at all bequeathed to us with our social rank” – this explains to the Knight that being noble is not where society places on the social color wheel, but it your actions of good and bad that define how noble and pure you are.
“Then I am noble, when I begin
To live virtuously and abandon sin” –
We can compare this idea in the poem to beauty and the beast, where the beast has turned very ugly and monstrous looking; here his appearance resembles his personality. It is metaphor. And Belle in the story is there to fall in love with him, she first hesitates, but because of her kind and loving nature she begins to see past his exterior and tries to know him and his story, he also gives up his arrogance and selfishness in order to gain her trust and affection. In the end we see the beast transforming into a handsome prince to reward Belle and to show the “Beast” that once you have changed your inner your outer will change will change too… bla la bla….
In The Wife of Baths tale the knight gives his wife what she wants which is “mastery” over him, which is “what women want” in the story, and for that he is rewarded with her transformation into a beautiful young woman who is not only good looking but faithful too.
Canterbury Tales, Chaucer. G, 1475 - reference.
Deletehttp://www.sparknotes.com/lit/canterbury/section10.rhtml
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DeleteHey,
DeleteI am a little confused as to how the quote "there can no man imagine an uglier creature." fits in to what you are saying about her making him marry her etc etc. Also how does it differ from the other two that are kind of the same idea? Like what the women do to make the men marry them. For example, Sir Gawain wants to marry her to save the king, and King Henry doing the things he does for her because he is, I guess, scared of her and then he ends up loving her because she is beautiful (which is in all of them and I think is very shallow!!)
2. The Wife of Bath's Tale is considered by some critics to indicate that Chaucer may have been a feminist. Why might they believe this? Do you agree? Remember to cite evidence from the text or some other source.
ReplyDelete“The history of the modern western feminist movements is divided into three "waves". Each is described as dealing with different aspects of the same feminist issues. The first wave refers to the movement of the 19th to early 20th centuries, which dealt mainly with suffrage, working conditions and educational rights for women and girls. The second wave (1960s-1980s) dealt with the inequality of laws, as well as cultural inequalities and the role of women in society. The third wave of feminism (late 1980s-early 2000s (decade)), is seen as both a continuation of the second wave and a response to the perceived failures.” – Wikipedia
Many novelists and writers would like to believe that Chaucer was a feminist, but the fact that feminism in the western world only began late 19th century to early 20th proves the fact that he might have had SOME of a feminist’s qualities but he didn’t define feminism of his time. In fact there is some suspicion of him committing rape himself, “In 1380 charges were dropped by one Cecily Chaumpaigne. The document on which the charges were based - “concerning my rape” (“de raptu meo”) - came to light in 1873. Chaucer apparently paid 10 pounds to Cecily, which was a huge amount for the time.”
This might explain the happy ending given to the Knight in his poem The Wife of Bath.
Chaucer seems to place the light on women’s attributes in much of his poetry. The Knight who had raped the maiden and then not being punished for his actions which were acknowledged by the law as wrong, but later during the poem it was brushed aside and not spoken of made me realize that Chaucer is not really a feminist. The fact that “the queen and other women” said its you okay!! You can save yourself if only you find out what women really want, this is showing a lack of female solidarity and selfishness. ‘the queen and other women’ clearly don’t show any form or sensitivity to their own gender, and human beings will always be bias to what defines them, this is another reason to why Chaucer was no feminist.
“Marriage is the key to survival and this is what Allison seeks and finds”(Carruthers, 214)- a negative light is placed upon Allison’s actions of having 5 husbands, because in that era a women like Allison is seen as very rebellious so the audience of Chaucer would simply hate her, he sort of tricked “us” –the audience into thinking he is a feminist when in fact he places the light on women like Allison who are proud of their sexuality and wealth, because we as audience of the 21st century have gotten used to the fact women are able to voice their opinions and be independent and wealthy and rich, but the audience of Chaucer’s time would think that Allison is an “idiot” and is lost and will die alone, and the women would do exactly the opposite of her actions.
Feminist want equality not sovereyntee, this here is another negative light placed on women as well as the fact that women cannot keep a secret.