Explore the presentation of femininity in Old English and Middle English texts and the way in which it differs.
The Wife’s Lament and Judith are examples of Old English texts which include women who face difficulties as a result of their femininity, whereas the Middle English text The Miller’s Tale includes a woman who, it seems, will inevitably commit adultery as a result of her femininity, something which the narrator makes a point of warning male readers about. The narrative of each of these texts demonstrate how gender is presented as a main issue in Old and Middle English, although femininity is not necessarily viewed as a weakness. In The Wife’s Lament, the wife expresses her sorrow regarding ‘the misery of exile’ after becoming
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Despite the fact that by this point women appearing in Anglo-Saxon literature was a more common occurrence, the overall effect of this was rather a negative one. Whereas Judith features a brave woman going into battle with Holofernes, Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale includes a man’s fears that his wife is unlikely to remain faithful. This fear is solely due to her young age, ‘For she was wilde and yong, and he was old’ even though this was the main reason he took her as his wife to begin with. Further on in the tale, Alison does commit adultery with a younger man, however the assumption that she would do so by her husband proves interesting when it comes to considering the presentation of femininity. According to Elaine Tuttel Hansen, in the Prologue the miller warns that ‘women 's sexual desires are in fact naturally excessive’ and that the only way to avoid humiliation is to not take a wife at all, ‘Who hath no wif, he is no cokewold.’ By claiming that committing adultery is simply an integral part of feminine nature, the miller forces the reader to become sceptical about Alison’s ability to remain faithful to her husband before the Tale has even begun. In Judith, subtle language differences are made to imply to the reader that femininity is still inferior to masculinity despite Judith’s …show more content…
Femininity is presented in this case through the eyes of a man, which can lead to some inaccuracies and prejudices. This is made clear in the warning given in the Prologue as the miller requests that the reader ‘putte me out of blame’ (put me out of blame) so he is not held responsible for the events that are included in the tale which may cause anger or upset among certain people. In terms of structure, the Old English texts show a narrator - be it first or third person – who believes that their version of events is accurate and can be trusted by readers. However, The Miller’s Tale and the inclusion of a Prologue in particular indicates that the narrator is retelling the story in an extremely subjective manner, which is why Alison is depicted as an untrustworthy character. One of the issues with a subjective narration is the impact this can have on a reader, as this makes women and femininity as a whole appear to be a fatal weakness and something which men should seek to avoid at all
Marie de France’s “Lanval” is a brilliantly witty and captivating narrative poem—one illustrating a knight’s unyielding honor and loyalty to his king as well as his enduring chivalric devotion to the woman he loves. Written in the twelfth century, amidst a time when women were looked down upon and considered useless and unnecessary, Marie’s portrayal of a knight needing to be rescued by his female lover breathes comic irony into this otherwise misogynistic and antifeminist world. In addition to this cleverly depicted romance, a further literary work, Geoffrey Chaucer’s early fifteenth century “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” extends its own explicitly satirical outlook
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are filled with many entertaining tales from a variety of characters of different social classes and background. The first two tales told, by the knight and the miller, articulate very different perspectives of medieval life. Primarily, The tales of both the knight and the miller bring strikingly different views on the idea of female agency, and as we will discover, Chaucer himself leaves hints that he supports the more involved, independent Alison, over the paper-thin character of Emily.
Some say women can get the worst out of a man, but in The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1485, proves it. The tales were originally written as a collection of twenty four tales, but has been narrowed down to three short tales for high school readers. The three tales consist of “The Miller”, “The Knight”, and “The Wife of Bath” along with their respective prologues. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer shows the weak but strong role of women throughout the “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” to contrast different human characteristics and stereotypes on the spectrum of people.
One of the aspects of the Middle Ages which is explored by numerous scholars today is that of the antifeminist stereotypes which pervaded literature and cultural mores during the period. In an era governed by men, the fact that women were treated as inferior is unsurprising; archetypal visions of femininity fit neatly into medieval history. However, most people would like to believe that such pigeonholing has been left in the past, allowing for more liberated times in which women are portrayed realistically and as the equals of men.
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
Alison in the Miller's Tale and May of the Merchant's Tale are similar in several ways. Both are young women who have married men much older than themselves. They both become involved with young, manipulative men. They also conspire to and do cuckold their husbands. This is not what marriage is about and it is demonstrated in both tales. What makes the Miller's Tale bawdy comedy and the Merchant's tale bitter satire is in the characterization. In the Miller's tale we are giving stereotyped characters. The principals are cardboard cut-outs sent into farcical motion. The Merchant's Tale gives us much more background and detail of the character's lives. The reader is more involved and can feel their situations. Here we will focus on the two women of each tale and how they demonstrate this difference.
In Shakespeare's comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor, there are two plots that ultimately converge into the concept of marriage; one is the antics executed by the wives, and the other is the marriage of Anne Page. Both of these plots subversively yield a disheartening attitude towards the view of women within the scope of the play. Wives in The Merry Wives of Windsor are not acknowledged as much beyond commodities, not to be entrusted to their own wills, and are considered anonymous, degraded figures by men. By examining the use of the word "wife", the characters who use it most frequently, how it is used, and by examining the surrounding text and context, one can reach these unfortunate conclusions with undoubted certainty.
Fell, Christine. Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.
It seems that only Queen Elizabeth, shrewd and headstrong, could provide a female presence strong enough to counter certain aspects of a male-dominated Renaissance culture. The Elizabethan sonnet provides a paradoxical example of woman's inferior status. Although she has all the idealized virtues--"meekness, constancy, beauty, and, of course, chastity" (155), the sonnet itself functions as a measure of "masculine vitality" (156). It is the male who eme...
Throughout most of literature and history, the notion of ‘the woman’ has been little more than a caricature of the actual female identity. Most works of literature rely on only a handful of tropes for their female characters and often use women to prop up the male characters: female characters are sacrificed for plot development. It may be that the author actually sacrifices a female character by killing her off, like Mary Shelly did in Frankenstein in order to get Victor Frankenstein to confront the monster he had created, or by reducing a character to just a childish girl who only fulfills a trope, as Oscar Wilde did with Cecily and Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest. Using female characters in order to further the male characters’
Chaucer, in his female pilgrimage thought of women as having an evil-like quality that they always tempt and take from men. They were depicted as untrustworthy, selfish and vain and often like caricatures not like real people at all. Through the faults of both men and women, Chaucer showed what is right and wrong and how one should live. Under the surface, however, lies a jaded look of women in the form that in his writings he seems to crate them as caricatures and show how they cause the downfall of men by sometimes appealing to their desires and other times their fears. Chaucer obviously had very opinionated views of the manners and behaviours of women and expressed it strongly in The Canterbury Tales. In his collection of tales, he portrayed two extremes in his prospect of women. The Wife of Bath represented the extravagant and lusty woman where as the Prioress represented the admirable and devoted followers of church. Chaucer delineated the two characters contrastingly in their appearances, general manners, education and most evidently in their behaviour towards men. Yet, in the midst of disparities, both tales left its readers with an unsolved enigma.
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.
As a man fascinated with the role of women during the 14th Century, or most commonly known as the Middle Ages, Chaucer makes conclusive evaluations and remarks concerning how women were viewed during this time period. Determined to show that women were not weak and humble because of the male dominance surrounding them, Chaucer sets out to prove that women were a powerful and strong-willed gender. In order to defend this argument, the following characters and their tales will be examined: Griselda from the Clerk's Tale, and the Wife of Bath, narrator to the Wife of Bath's Tale. Using the role of gender within the genres of the Canterbury Tales, exploring each woman's participation in the outcomes of their tales, and comparing and contrasting these two heroines, we will find out how Chaucer broke the mold on medievalist attitudes toward women.
Evaluate and respond to the presentations of women in the Romantic period. Feel free to discuss presentations of women, by women (such as Austen’s Persuasion) as well as presentations of women by men (such as the “she” in Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”). Consider the following questions: are these presentations problematic? What do they tell us about the values and briefs of the Romantic Period? Do any of these presentations subvert (complicate, or call into questions) the time’s notions of femininity?
Geoffrey Chaucer used his characters in Canterbury Tales as a way to illustrate stereotype of medieval society. The Wife of Bath, one of the pilgrims in Canterbury Tales demonstrates an authoritative role in marriage The Wife of Bath’s unusual behavior and attitudes can be interpreted by two motives: feminist ideals or sexual indulgence. When considering feminist viewpoints, it can be concluded that the Wife of Bath’s behavior is motivated by sexual indulgence.