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examine the woman roles in sir gawain and the green knight
feminism in american literature
feminism in american literature
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In the Middle Ages, the roles of women became less restricted and confined and women became more opinionated and vocal. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight presents Lady Bertilak, the wife of Sir Bertilak, as a woman who seems to possess some supernatural powers who seduces Sir Gawain, and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale, present women who are determined to have power and gain sovereignty over the men in their lives. The female characters are very openly sensual and honest about their wants and desires. It is true that it is Morgan the Fay who is pulling the strings in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; nevertheless the Gawain poet still gives her a role that empowers her. Alison in The Wife if Bath Prologue represents the voice of feminism and paves the way for a discourse in the relationships between husbands and wives and the role of the woman in society.
In The Wife of Bath Prologue, Dame Alison discusses how a successful relationship between a man and woman is one where the woman is in control. She uses her experiences to defend her views. A woman who has been married five times, Alison clearly endorses herself as being a woman of sexual desires, and in doing this she also makes a defense for women like herself. She disputes the notion that marriage is inferior to chastity by giving examples from the Bible. She cites King Solomon who had numerous wives and was not condemned for his behavior so why should she. She also quotes St. Paul’s statement that it is better to have passion while married, “It’s no sin to be married, he said, / For if you’re burning, better to be wed” (50-51). She does not throw out virginity, but rather argues, “A woman may be counseled to be pure, / But to counsel and commandment aren’...
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Cox, Catherine S. "Genesis and Gender in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." The Chaucer Review 35.4 (2001): 378-90. Print.
Huppé, Bernard F. "Rape and Woman's Sovereignty in the Wife of Bath's Tale." Modern Language Notes 63.6 (1948): 378-81. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Brian Stone. 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. 222-77. Print.
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.
8[8] Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Marie Borroff. Norton Anthology of British Literature Vol. 1, New York: WW Norton, 1993.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Keith Harrison. Medieval English Literature. Ed. J.B. Trapp, Douglas Gray, and Julia Boffey. New York: Oxford UP, 2002: 356-416.
Barron, W.R.J., trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.. New York: Manchester University Press, 1974.
Norton. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." The Norton Anthology English Literature. New York : W.M. Norton and Company, 2006. 162-213.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume One. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1993.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Element of Literature, Sixth Course. Austin: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, 1997. 161-172. Print.
The image of the woman in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue is depicted by Chaucer to be “barley wheat” in a town and civilization lusting for whole white wheat or virginity (Chaucer 1711). The woman has married many men and in doing so forgotten the true value of the Christian faith and now believes worldly influence can overpower the scriptures of the Bible, “can you show in plain words that Almighty God forbade us marriage? Or where did he command virginity?” (Chaucer 1709). Jackie Shead analyzes the prologue and states, “it begins by manipulating authoritative texts--a pre-emptive strike to justify the Wife's marital history and her single-minded pursuit of self-gratification” (Shead). The possibility of the Wife of B...
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
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume One. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1993.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 162-213.
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.
The investigation into whether or not Geoffrey Chaucer was ahead of his time in terms of his views on feminism has been up for debate for hundreds of years. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue is just one solitary
Chaucer, Geoffrey (1987). “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.” The Riverside Chaucer, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 105-116.
Rigby, Stephen Henry. (2000). The Wife of Bath, Christine de Pizan, and the Medieval Case for Women. Chaucer Review, (pgs 133-165)
The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale." Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams et. 7th Edition, Volume 1. New York: Norton, 2000. 253-281