Weeks 4 - 6
Please use the comments section below for your answers.
1. 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"...
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 Ragnelleidentifies 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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ReplyDeleteChaucer has done something different than the poets and writers of that period. The story of "The Wife of Bath" centred on the question of Sir Gawain and the question "What do women want?". To make women in high power and men definitely in the wrong, it shows Sir Gawain, not as an 'aristocratic sportsman but a sexual predator. The 'Canterbury's Tales's audience might think that the Celt society is backwards; The English organised themselves as a patriarchal society, they might take it with a pinch of a salt believing how funny the Celts are, on letting their women run armies and countries.
ReplyDeleteMany have talked about the final scene where the overwhelmed knight made a decision which affects both him and his 'loathy' wife. Perhaps, this scene is the most debatable in which scholars and feminists around the world perform a literature tug of war. The loathly lady resembles the Wife of Bath herself, in her images expresses, at least with the dexterity with which she does so. she is a older woman who jumps at the opportunity to marry a younger man, and she lectures him when he berates her for who she is. This is a like how the Wife of Bath treats her young husband Jankyn. These similarities have led some people to conclude that the loathly lady is the Wife's alter-ego in the tale, the character she uses a sort of stand-in to express her point of view.
Chaucer discusses his words to describe the Wife quite distinctly. His descriptions of her facial and bodily features are sexually suggestive. The features that Chaucer pays attention to describing Alison should be noticed. In the “General Prologue,” Chaucer's description involves her physical appearance describing her clothes, legs, feet, hips, and most importantly her gap-tooth, which during that time (according to The Wife), symbolized sensuality and lust. He discusses how she is a talented weaver and devoted Christian who goes on pilgrimages often. This may make the reader believe that she is a religious woman, but the reader later sees that the Wife's reason to go on these pilgrimages is not due to religion. She feels that every place should be seen; this has nothing to due with religion. She may also be dedicated traveller, a medieval tourist who likes to sight see. She is a very self-confident woman who thinks highly of herself and her skills as a cloth maker. The ironic part is when Chaucer adds that she has a gap between her teeth. During the fourteenth century, having a gap between the teeth was symbolic of a sensual nature. She is more interested in love than anything that has do with homemaking. He also emphasizes that she had “Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde " which meant that she has been married five times. She is also described as knowing all the " remedies of love" since she is so experienced with men.
In my opinion, I think that the twist in ending gives the antagonist a good ending. Whether he deserved it or not, I think Chaucer was an early 'feminist but he was poking fun at Celts.