When talking of the Medieval literature, one of the most outstanding works might be The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer, which recorded stories told by 29 pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. Among them, the sixth story, The Wife of Bath's Tale, left the strongest impression on me. After some further study on it these days, it came to me that there are three points in this character that impressed me most: Her fashionable dressing, her sinuous marital experience and her overseas adventures.
The tale gave an exhaustive portrayal on the dressing of the wife of Bath: Her kerchiefs were elaborately woven; her hose was in vibrant red; her shoes was polished new. All of these traits in her dressing led us readers to the image that how fashionable this women should be! I can hardly imagine how such a Medieval women could be so stylish! As far as I know, women at that time were quite humble. They barely wandered out in the street and had to depend completely on their husbands for the basic supplies, let alone keep up to the latest fashion and keep their face “red in hue”. On the contrary to this Medieval stereotype, the wife of Bath resembled women of modern times more —— it was not until the social movement by the feminists in the 1960's did women have their own freedom and can decide how to dress themselves and make themselves more decent and attractive. The wife of Bath, living in a city where cloth-making was quite prosperous, like today's fashion capital of Paris, probably had a tension to compete herself with other contemporary women in fashion. Likewise, women of modern times tend to possess the bags, clothes, shoes, perfume, watches, etc. of the latest style, just to show their or their husband's enormous wea...
... middle of paper ...
...lgrim probably as well. She had enjoyed all the natural beauty that women at that time could never been able to see. To the wife of Bath, nothing was impossible! She loved adventure, what was something seemed intangible to folks at that time and even today. No one I acquainted with has ever been to so many places around the world as the wife of Bath did!
It is a really a sheer difficulty for me to imagine such a mythical medieval woman. What she wore, believed and did all seem unbelievable and impressive to people even in modern times. It is even quite difficult to compare her with an average woman in modern times. Given that Chaucer did not tend to express the wicked and rebellious spirit by moulding such a woman in the Canterbury Tales, her audacity to swim against the dominant cultures and beliefs at that feudal age is really a surprise each time if mentioned.
She was aware of the situation of women in her times, especially being a puritan woman. They were restricted to certain modes of behavior, speech
It is first important to understand the background of both The Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe’s stories. The Wife of Bath was a character created by Geoffrey Chaucer who is radically different from the nonfictional character of Margery Kempe. The Wife of Bat...
The use of euphemism and crudeness in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” is simultaneously unnerving and amusing, and begs the question of how a “wicked” woman like The Wife could ever actually progress in medieval society. Chaucer incorporates subtle allusions to female sexual organs and it is this bluntness (that would raise eyebrows even today) which establishes the Wife as such a powerfully outspoken character. Because courtship in Chaucer’s time was considered worthy of complete submission, the fact that the Wife places such emphasis on domination and even psychological power hints at her being an object of irony (and not a feminist figure “before her time”). It is for this reason that Chaucer’s delicate use of “queynte”- a term from which
...s set for a woman of this time and carried them out with dignity. She was a true 16th century woman.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is the story of a large group of men and women going to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. Each of the travellers introduces themselves and tells an interesting tale during their journey. One of the travellers, the Wife of Bath shares her views on social relationships between men and women. The fourteenth century is viewed as having a patriarchal dominated society. However, the Wife of Bath, Alisoun, is a strong believer in female maistrie, control in the marriage. She believes in female supremacy over husbands in marriage, and does not feel they can be equal partners in the relationship. Through her prologue and tale the wife justifies the actions she and other women make in their marriages. She exemplifies such control in her prologue which summarizes her life, the Queen in her tale, and the Old hag in the tale. In each case the women in the relationship exercises control over her husband. Therefore, the Wife of Bath is a strong advocator of female maistrie within a marriage, by not only believing in maistrie, but also practices it in her own life.
The Wife of Bath, with the energy of her vernacular and the voraciousness of her sexual appetite, is one of the most vividly developed characters of 'The Canterbury Tales'. At 856 lines her prologue, or 'preambulacioun' as the Summoner calls it, is the longest of any of the pilgrims, and matches the General Prologue but for a few lines. Evidently Chaucer is infatuated with Alisoun, as he plays satirically with both gender and class issues through the Wife's robust rhetoric. Scholars and students alike have continued this obsession with her, and as a consequence Chaucer's larger than life widow has been subject to centuries of scrutiny. Indeed, she is in the vast minority amongst the Canterbury bound pilgrims; apart from the in-vogue Prioress she is the only female - though she appears in no way daunted by the apparent inequality in numbers. It seems almost a crime to examine masculinity in her prologue and tale, but as I hope to show, there is much to learn both about the Wife and about Chaucer from this male presence.
..., and learning his lesson on the nature of women, he conquered things that most men would just say “Take me, I don’t want to go through this kind of stuff”. Luckily for me I found a gal that is very beautiful and I can trust, and hopefully we will move on from where we are as of now. Unfortunately, she has probably read The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and is going to want the same thing all women want, but strangely I’m okay with this because if a big bad Knight and other men have done it, hey, why not go for it. I’m just in the position that the Knight was never in, and she isn’t old, poor, or ugly, so I don’t have to choose her or a beautiful unfaithful chick. But the sad part about this is,like the Knight, I need to be punished because I did something very bad on Wednesday that I am going to be punished for on Thursday, but a MIP is not as bad as raping a girl. HAHA..
The widow Alisoun was seamstress by trade as well as a liberated older woman of her time in thought and action; for that reason, she traveled unescorted with a caravan of many diverse individuals toward the town of Canterbury. Hallissy submits, “The Wife of Bath’s array is flamboyant for a woman past forty, much less a widow. Her red stockings alone mark her off as improper. Her hat, as big as a shield, her five coverchiefs, her foot mantle about her hips, and her spurs on her feet indicate not only that she is ready for travel but also that she is ready for a new love. Extroverted in manner, assertive in speech, she defies authority by her appearance alone” (103). Each person on the pilgrimage shared a story with the others as a way of making the trip more enjoyable. The person whom had the most interesting tale would receive a complementary dinner at the end of their travel, co...
The Wife of Bath is a complex character-she is different from the way she represents herself. Maybe not even what she herself thinks she is. On the surface, it seems as though she is a feminist, defending the rights and power of women over men. She also describes how she dominates her husband, playing on a fear that was common to men. From a point of view of a man during that time period, she seemed to illustrate all of the wrongs that men found in women. Such as a weak parody of what men, then saw as feminists. The Wife of Bath constantly emphasizes the negative implications of women throughout the ages. She describes women as greedy, controlling, and dishonest.
The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale. Geoffery Chaucer. The Middle Ages, Volume 1A. Eds. Christopher Baswell and Anne Howland Schotter. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Fourth ed. Gen.eds David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2010. 375-408. Print.
One of the most interesting and widely interpreted characters in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is the Wife of Bath. She has had five different husbands and openly admits to marrying the majority of them for their money. The wife appears to be more outspoken and independent than most women of medieval times, and has therefore been thought to symbolize the cause of feminism; some even refer to her as the first actual feminist character in literature. Readers and scholars probably argue in favor of this idea because in The Canterbury Tales, she uniquely gives her own insight and opinions on how relations between men and women should be carried out. Also, the meaning of her tale is that virtually all women want to be granted control over themselves and their relationship with their husbands, which seems to convince people that the Wife of Bath should be viewed as some sort of revolutionary feminist of her time. This idea, however, is incorrect. The truth is that the Wife of Bath, or Alisoun, merely confirms negative stereotypes of women; she is deceitful, promiscuous, and clandestine. She does very little that is actually empowering or revolutionary for women, but instead tries to empower herself by using her body to gain control over her various husbands. The Wife of Bath is insecure, cynical towards men in general, and ultimately, a confirmation of misogynistic stereotypes of women.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an important part of his most famed work, The Canterbury Tales. One of the most respected highly analyzed of all of the tales, this particular one is important both for its character development and its prevailing themes. It seamlessly integrates ideas on society at that time with strong literary development. This work stands the test of time both because of its literary qualities and because of what it can teach us about the role of women in late Medieval society.
The character of the Wife of Bath in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Prologue is a strong woman who knows what she wants from life. She is ahead of her time, seeing that women who portrayed themselves the way she does were not necessarily looked positively upon. In this sense, I believe that the Wife of Bath is a feminist. When I use the word feminist I do not mean bra-burning, men hating feminist. I mean a woman who is in touch with herself. She is her own genre when it comes to feminism. She is comfortable with her sexuality and what she wants from life. Through Chaucer, she is viewed as a promiscuous; however, she is actually in control of her sexual adventures.
The Wife of Bath 's prologue and tale has a very personal authenticity to it. Although Geoffrey Chaucer is the author, the wife of Bath takes agency to talk about herself and her experiences. It is almost as if the wife speaks for him. The expectations of married women, at the time The Canterberry Tales were written, were to be modest, true and obedient wives. The wife of Bath, however, admits to using her own experiences as the source of her knowledge in marriage, and not the views of society. It is the fact that she relies on her internal thoughts and experiences that allows one to see her (and Chaucer 's) personal insight on the desires of married women. Although some may say that the wife of bath is simply looking for dominion over her husbands, Chaucer characterizes the wife of bath as a bold woman, and also uses the first person point of
The character of the Wife of Bath is clearly feminist. She indicates this by her extreme ideas of female “maistrye” and statements such as “I have the power duringe al my lyf upon his proper body, and nought he,” which is extremely feminist. However, Chaucer makes us see the Wife of Bath as inconsistent, at times illogical, and also amoral and adulterous, The prologue and tale is spoken by a woman of supposed vast experience, yet was written by a man. While the prologue and tale may be seemingly feminist, could it be a vehicle for a deeper anti-feminist message?