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What is the relation between Wife of Bath and her tale
5 ideas about the wife of bath tale
Comparisons between Bath's wife and her tale
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The Wife of Bath’s Tale was written in the 1380s as part of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer is often credited as the Father of English Literature . While it is commendable that he set people on the path of developing English as we see it today, it doesn't automatically mean his works are the best. As a reader I criticise works based on diction, how everything connects together, and multiple lessons that connect to the story. The story was over all an exhausting read and did not give me a good enough ending for it all to be worthwhile.
My first issue with the Wife of Bath’s Tale is its use of diction. Diction is a literary term that describes the words you choose to include in your story, and how they affect the overall work. Using big fancy words often makes the story sound better and feel more sophisticated but the Wife of Bath’s Tale is overflowing with them. The effect it had was not in any way positive. Reading a sentence felt like reading a novel and I often had to go over sentences multiple times because my mind just couldn’t take in and what was being said. At other times I had to put the work down altogether to give my brain a rest from the strain. Almost immediately after starting I was anxious to get it over with, and if it wasn't required reading I wouldn’t have finished it at all.
In the Wife of Bath’s
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Tale a knight rapes a young women because he is sexually frustrated. His original punishment is death, but the queen begs the king to hand his fate over to her instead. As a counter punishment the queen sends the knight on a quest to find the answer to a question. This punishment is the equivalent of getting community service when you’ve committed a mass murder. The knight basically got off scot free, which leads into my next issue. What did he learn? The knight goes on this quest to find the answer to the question the queen asked him. He tries for a couple days and gives up. On the last day he meets an old witch that gives him the answer to the question with one stipulation: he must marry her. He answers the question, saves his life, and takes the witch to be his wife. The witch turns young, beautiful, and faithful in the end and they live happily ever after: THE END. Throughout his whole journey he has not once been faced with the wrongness of his choice to rape the maiden besides the fact that it was ungentleman like, and even then his crime is more implied than anything. He was taken to medieval ‘court’ and was maybe given a verbal spanking, but besides the death sentence that he escaped because of the queen he hasn’t really learned how horrible the crime he committed was. The Wife of Bath’s Tale is famous for its part in The Canterbury Tales and leading the people of Britain on the path of modern English.
I cannot deny that it is an important historical work that with or without it our history may or may not have been the same, but historical importance cannot be the standard by which we judge our content. The best way to judge a book will always be how it makes the reader feel, because without them a book is nothing. The use of diction, how everything connected together, and the multiple lessons that connected to the story but not the original crime made this piece difficult and unpleasant to
read.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Wife of Bath's Tale." Canterbury Tales. McDougal Littell Literature British Literature, 2012. Print. 180-192.
The story of Dame Ragnell and "The Wife of Bath's Tale" are works that are very similar yet have differences that set the two apart. The most obvious comparison between the two works is the dilemma faced in each. In both stories a man's life is at stake and all he has to do to be spared is to answer one question. That question has to do with what women really want. Another similarity involves the outcome of each story. The differences between the two stories are revealed in the plots. The differences that stand out the most are the circumstances leading up to the question being asked and the attitude of the person that has to marry the old hag to get the answer to the question. There are many small differences between the stories but they are not as important as the two mentioned.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” From The Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition. Ed. Larry D. Benson. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
In the words of the Broadview Anthology’s introduction to the Wife of Bath, she is “a sexually experienced cynic who teaches young people the tricks of love…. The Wife’s history and the literary shape of her prologue conform to many of the traditional misogynistic stereotypes found in her husband’s book” (Broadview 298). Why would Chaucer write such a clever portrayal of personal pleasure through the eyes of a woman, and yet design her to possess every quality so despised and abhorred within her so-called lifetime? Because the audience of this poem would probably include wives, and because everything the Wife describes is almost laughably vulgar, it can be understood that this poem would not be interpreted literally and women would instead be forced to listen to an account about female power, desire, and pleasure written, unfortunately, as cruel satire of their
Shead, Jackie. "'The wife of bath's tale' as self-revelation: Jackie Shead discusses how far the Wife's Tale perpetuates the picture we have gained of her from her Prologue." The English Review Feb. 2010: 35+. General OneFile. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.
Though Chaucer showed multiple tales of various characters in The Canterbury Tales, the Miller’s and Wife of Bath’s tale surpassed them all on their concept of marriage and love. Both allow the reader to understand where they are coming from and their perception. While one does not seem to believe too much in love, the other does. However, both clearly believe that women control the game of love in their own respective ways.
In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath is a strong woman who loudly states her opinions about the antifeminist sentiments popular at the time. Chaucer, however, frequently discredits her arguments by making them unfounded and generally compromising her character. This brings into question Chaucer's political intent with the Wife of Bath. Is he supportive of her views, or is he making a mockery of woman who challenge the patriarchal society and its restriction and mistrust of women? The Wife's comedic character, frequent misquoting of authorities, marital infidelity, and her (as well as Chaucer's) own antifeminist sentiments weaken the argument that Chaucer supported of the Wife's opinions.
"The Wife of Bath's Tale." The Canterbury Tales. New York: Viking, 2009. . Web. Jan. & Feb.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.” The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2000. 87-98.
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.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. Trans. R.M. Lumiansky. NY: Bantam, 2006. 184-192. Print.
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a story about a widow who took a pilgrimage to the town of Canterbury with an array of dynamic characters whose diverse backgrounds allowed them to share their stories with one another to make the long journey more interesting. The widow named Alisoun in the “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” told the tale of her experiences with her five past husbands and a story about a knight and a witch. She truly believed that for a woman to have a happy life she would need to gain dominion over a man; however one could assume this was programmed into her by her influential mother and her own religious doctrines. Accordingly, Alisoun argued that the woman must control everything in order to have a happy marriage; however, her life experience and the story she shared should tell her otherwise.
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.
In the 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, which included a progressive view of women's concerns in "The Wife of Bath." During a time when women were still considered chattel existing almost exclusively to produce heirs, Chaucer takes a stand on issues affecting women that were not commonly given consideration. Writing in the first person, Chaucer is able to describe life from the viewpoint of a woman. Through this style, Chaucer addresses subject matter that would have been too candid for a female writer during his time period. By writing "The Wife of Bath" in a satirical way, Chaucer points out issues facing women regarding double standards, the validity of female desire, and the economic necessity of women to marry well while keeping the text humorous with some common female stereotypes regarding deception that have persisted into present day culture.
Some critiques of Wife of Bath make the claim that the Tale is an anti-climax after the robust presentation of the Prologue. Certainly, the prologue of Wife of Bath is robust. With its unstoppable vitality, strong language ("queynte" etc.) and homely, vigorous vocabulary (eg. the references to "barley-brede" and mice), it is the Wife's personality -- certainly an extremely robust one -- that dominates. There is a certain brash energy to the whole of the Prologue, whether because of the forcefulness with which the Wife presents her arguments against the antifeminists (eg. her comments about clerks being unable to do "Venus werkes" and taking it out on "sely wyf[s]" in print), or because of her histrionic presentation of the methods with which she amply gave her husbands the "wo that is in mariage". The Wife, as speaker of her Prologue, has an earthy, homely vigour that pervades the whole of the Prologue; as such, it would certainly be fitting to apply the epithet "robust" to the Prologue. [good paragraph]