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 Ragnelle identifies 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?
The wife of Bath’s tale (the actions and the words by king)
ReplyDelete“There can no man imagine an uglier creature”
“no joy nor feast at all; there was nothing but heaviness and much sorrow”
“so woeful was he , his wife looked so ugly”
The Loathly lady (the actions and words by the knight )
- She was the ugliest creature
- Her face was red, nose running
- She was as ungodly creature
- For I would be better off dead
According to Carter (2003), from the Loathly lady, the tale follows the model of showing that a true king needs to leave his court and prove himself in the wild locus of the forest. The motifs of the Irish Sovranty myths are that they have to please the queen, the woman for them to get the reward they want. Hahn (1995) explains that the primary sense lies in the content where the tale is having sex with a woman who is ugly, fibrous and diseased. In the tale the woman is described as ‘ green teeth that lay in her head and reached to her ears’, ‘shins distorted and awry’, ‘her ankles were think, her shoulder blades were broad, her kneed were big’. Chaucer’s 'Loathly lady' relates to the Wife of Bath’s obsession with the manipulation of power ratios by desire, frustration and pleasure.
References
Carter, S. (2003). Coupling the beastly bride and the hunter hunted: What lies behind in Chaucer’s wife of bath’s tale. In The Chaucer review, vol. 37, no. 4, 2003.
Chaucer, Geoffrey (c.1390). The wife of bath
Hahn, T. (Ed.). (1995). The wedding of sir Gawain and dame ragnelle. In sir Gawain: Eleven romances and tales. Michigan: Medieval institute publications
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DeleteThere is a relationship between language, sex, power and transgression in the poets Revard (1997) argues about. In 1683, a slender volume that contained three Pindaric odes of “Preface to the Masculine Sex” was to defend the right of women to pursue learning and to use their wit to compost poetry. The triumph of female wit starts from defending the rights and raise the acceptability of women pursuing and contesting where the domain of poetry was focused on male. According to Revard (1997), Cowley’s Pindarics emphasizes on the rivalry between women and men poets with the interconnected themes or beauty and wit. As Cowley expressed in his affectionate ‘beauty’, when women argues with men in affairs of love, they have the advantage of beauty that allows them to carry the day. “Who can, alas, their strength express, Arm’d, when they themselves undress, cap-a-pe with Nakedness?”
ReplyDeleteCowley, in the first Pindaric claims a clever protest that women possess an unfair advantage over men because they are women. Advantages including women qualities including beauty, virtue and their sex. Men mainly valued women for their beauty and obedience where they thought if they lose in a literary contest then they will lose the right to dominate women in other areas. In the patriarchy society, women was not easily portrayed as a elite or to catch people’s attention in academic areas, and Revard (1997) claims that Aphra Behn’s literary translation were undisputed and her complement did not exceed Phillips. Women were to write secretly and many of the extraordinary poets written by women were not revealed in the time. Revard (1997) suggests that women should also be supported and give appreciation towards their hard work. Whereas twenty first century is leading with famous and intelligent women having powers in different areas, reaching a different level compared to men and having the chance and the opportunities for men and women in the world today.
References
Revard , S.P., Summers, C.J. & Pebworth, T. (Eds).(1997). Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn and The female Pindaric in representing women in renaissance England. Columbia: University of Missouri Press
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.
ReplyDeleteThe Wife of Bath’s tale shows elements of Feminism throughout the text. This would have been a controversial viewpoint for the ages Chaucer lived in. There are many examples of pro-feminist views throughout the text. There is also the belief that Chaucer was in fact ‘not’ a Feminist is also evident and that he was just having a go at the Celts who wrote the original telling of this tale. The Celts used to run their society as a Matriarchy and this would have been seen as a funny and strange thing to the English who organised themselves in a Patriarchal fashion. It may have been something they told each other to laugh at the Celts and how backward they were having Women run their nations and cities. In this blog I’ll explore both sides of the argument and make a judgement on whether I think Chaucer was truly a Feminist or not.
The Shmoop Editorial Team (2008) states “after the loathly lady transforms into a beautiful young woman, she seems to lose some of her chutzpah, becoming a wife who's obedient to her husband in everything.” This would argue that Chaucer was not a feminist because of the way the story flows. The loathly lady starts off by having the high ground by tricking him into marrying her and has him on his knees at her mercy. But instead of making Sir Gawain her slave, she instead chooses the life of a loving wife and submits to her husband. Her husband is the prime example of the Patriarchal society; he was to be executed for raping a maiden at the beginning of the story, but instead he found love and lived happily ever after. This would suggest that Chaucer had no Feministic view, but was really just poking fun at the ‘uncivilised’ Celts.
The pro-feminist approach has a different on why the loathly lady does what she does. The following quote from The Wife of Bath’s Tale shows the knight Sir Gawain at the Queen’s (not the King’s) mercy and it is she who decides his fate. “But that the queene and other ladyes mo so longe preyeden the kyng of grace til he his lyf hym graunted in the place and yaf hym to the queene, al at hir wille,” (Critical Reader, Wife of Bath’s Tale 894-897). With Sir Gawain at the Queen’s complete mercy, he is begging at her feet to spare his life. This helps to fortify the position of Women over the Males in the story. Another example that points towards Chaucer’s possible Feministic views is the way that the loathly lady agrees to help Sir Gawain, but asks that he will do anything she asks him. She tricks him into marrying her and as a result has Gawain on his knees once more begging for mercy. This establishment of authority the loathly lady had over this once mighty knight enforces the view of Feminism and demotes the Patriarch society.
In my personal opinion, given the evidence and arguments of both sides I have to say that I don’t believe Chaucer was a Feminist. There is a lot of evidence suggesting that he really was a Feminist, but the end of the story is the convicted rapist finding happiness through the loathly lady who had transformed into a beautiful young lady. If Chaucer was truly a Feminist he would not have Sir Gawain riding off into the sunset with his new wife happily ever after.
References:
Shmoop Editorial Team. (November 11, 2008).The Loathly Lady (the Hag) in The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Tale. Retrieved April 9, 2013, from http://www.shmoop.com/the-wife-of-baths-tale/the-loathly-lady-the-hag.html
Critical Reader-https://autonline.aut.ac.nz/bbcswebdav/pid-2513184-dt-content-rid-4451052_4/institution/Papers/166101/Publish/Lit%26Desire_Critical%20Reader_2013.pdf
Many people debate about whether Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the The Wife of Bath’s Tale may have been a feminist. But I think it is depend on the personal point of view. From a person perspective Chaucer is a feminist, but this perspective can be debated from either side.
DeleteThe definition of the feminism is “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” (Dictionary, 2013). The Wife of the Bath Tale certainly contains those issues about feminism. But on the other hand, those issues were based or contrasted with Masculinity. Based on recent research by Susan Carter’ (2003), if he is not a feminist, or the story is not based on a feminist angle then he is just playing with the textually, subjectivity, and ideals construction of sexuality. The knight of the story is a rapist in the start, and then become a battered after marriage, but a husband in the end, which seems like a process from masculinity to feminist. Therefore this is an inspirable story wrote by a Chaucer used to encourage women to fright for equal rights, but also teaching others to respect women. An example character in the story is - Queen whom is in the dominating position in the story.
Chaucer also identified his idea of feminist in the story, which the greatest desire of a women is "Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee As wel over hir housbond as hir love, And for to been in maistrie hym above. This is youre mooste desir, thogh ye me kille. Dooth as yow list; I am heer at youre wille."(L1038-1042).
Whether Chaucer is a feminist or not can be judged based on the The Wife of Bath's Tale. Based on this story the author is a feminist, because the context content enhanced knowledge on feminist, but does it means he is feminist? Elozaberth M. Biebel(1998) suggest the only way to conclude to this answer is to “Eradication of stringent gender roles”. The consideration of masculinity or feminist will not exist if there is no gender role, or sexual difference etc…
Over all, if Chaucer is not a feminist, the story he wrote- The Wife of Bath's Tale a scatching satire on feminist. Therefore I agree with the others that he is a feminist.
Reference
Chaucer G. (C1390) The Wife of Bath's Tale
Carter, S. (2003). Coupling The Beastly Bride And The Hunter Hunted: What Lies Behind in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale. In The Chaucer Review, Vol. 37, No. 4, 2003.
Dictionary (2013). Dictionary. com: Feminism. Retrieve from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminism
Elizabeth M. Biebel, “A Wife, a Batterer, a Rapist: Representations of ‘Masculinity’ in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” in Masculinities in Chaucer, ed. Peter G. Beidler (Cambridge, Eng., 1998), pp. 63–75.
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.
DeleteMany people debate whether Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the The wife of Bath’s tale (c1390) may have been a feminist. I think, however, that this is dependent on the personal point of view of the reader. From a personal perspective Chaucer is a feminist, but this perspective is debatable. Carter’s review of the Chaucer, have suggests that compare with other loathy ladies, like Irish Sovranty Hag due the early Irish literature, The Wife Of Bath’s tale is different. But we can debate on whether he is a feminist or just playing with the textuality, subjectivity and constriction of ideas about sexuality (Carter, 2003).
Feminism has been defined as “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men” (Dictionary, n.d.). The wife of Bath’s tale (Chauser, c1390) certainly contains these feminist issues, however, those issues were based on, or contrasted with, masculinity. Based on recent research by Carter (2003), if Chaucer is not a feminist, or the story is not based on a feminist angle, then he is just playing with the textually, subjectivity, and ideals that construct sexuality. The knight of the story begins as a rapist, then becomes forced into marriage, but becomes a good husband in the end. This seems like a process from masculinity to femininity. Therefore, this is an inspirable story used to encourage women to fright for equal rights, while also teaching others to respect women. An example of this is the character of the Queen, who has a dominating position in the story.
Chaucer also identified his idea of feminism in the story, in which the greatest desire of a women is defined as "desiren to have sovereynetee As wel over hir housbond as hir love, And for to been in maistrie hym above. This is youre mooste desir, thogh ye me kille. Dooth as yow list; I am heer at youre wille"(Chaucer, c1390, L1038-1042).
Whether or not Chaucer is a feminist can be judged based on The wife of Bath's tale. Based on this story the author is a feminist, because the contextual content enhances knowledge of feminism. Does this mean, however, that Chaucer is feminist? Biebel (1998) suggests that the only way to answer this question is through the “eradication of stringent gender roles” (Biebel, 1998, p.64). That is, any consideration of masculinity or feminist will not exist if there is no gender role, or sexual differences.
Overall, if Chaucer is not a feminist, his story The wife of Bath's tale is a searching satire on feminist. Therefore, I agree with others who have studied this work in that he is a feminist.
References
Chaucer, G. (c1390). The wife of Bath's tale. Critical Reader 2013.
Carter, S. (2003). Coupling the beastly bride and the hunter hunted: What lies behind in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale. The Chaucer Review, 37(4),(pp. 329-345).
Dictionary (n.d.). Dictionary.com: Feminism. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminism
Biebel, E. M. (1998). A wife, a batterer, a rapist: Representations of ‘masculinity’ in the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale, In P. G. Beidler (Ed.) Masculinities in Chaucer (pp. 63-75).Cambridge, UK: Woodbridge.
The Loathly Lady is described as ugly in all tales. For example,
ReplyDeletein The wife of bath, Chaucer wrote
'There can no man imagine an uglier creature'
'She was the ugliest creature'
from King Arthur
in The Loathly Lady, Span wrote
'And in came a grisly ghost' (L23)
'And nothing less she seemed to be
than a fiend that comes from hell'.(Lines31&32)
from King Henry.
from those descriptions, readers can imagine how ugly the lady Fabula is.
In Chaucer's story, the loathly lady offers the answer that Sir Gawain was supposed to find to save his life, which is a marriage with the lady. Gawain begs for letting him live without the penalty. At the end, he tells the lady 'wear the pants in the relationship' then the lady changed into a beautiful, young and sexy wife.
In other literature, Gawain volunteers to get married for King Arthur's life, as the loathly lady had power. And Gawain gets thanks from the King. It can be seen as a noble loyalty for Kings. King Arther told him the tale of the women that lady demanded to. Gawain believed that the lady will become beautiful when they are married.
The stories have the common factors but three authors recreated the story slightly different as the lady offered different deals and received different attitude. For example, the reaction of the knight and Sir Gawain is different. Sir Gawain had willingness to marry for king but the knight said 'great was the woe the knight had in his thought' before he had sex with the old ugly wife.
What interests me is, in all three stories they married for better situation (Kingdom, Loyalty,) with the most ugliest woman who used different way to get married in each story, but had the same or similar result - get a beautiful wife. It was disgusting to watch and imagine the story because of the marriage with ugly woman and there was no intellectual and spiritual satisfaction relationship but sexuality .
References:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. (c. 1390). The Wife of Bath's Tale.
Hahn, T. (Ed.). (1995). The wedding of sir Gawain and dame ragnelle. In sir Gawain: Eleven romances and tales. Michigan: Medieval institute publications
Span,S 'King Henry'.
Carter, S. (2003). Coupling the beastly bride and the hunter hunted: What lies behind in Chaucer’s wife of bath’s tale. In The Chaucer review, vol. 37, no. 4, 2003.
Chaucer’s motif central to the Wife’s tale was constructed with different areas on textuality with subjectivity and the ideas about sexuality. The Wife’s tale is about liberation from gender role restriction and it shows that Chaucer was interested in the gender role destabilization and focused on that aspect inside the story. The story did not lie in the issues of kingship which was the core subject in most loathly lady tales. The tale can be seen as an age-spanning battle with the complexity of women versus the anti-feminist movement. When the knight was going past the women by her near the pond, he approached her in a silent way and raped her in an instance. This can reflect on how women were seen in that society with no power but only their body and their virginity to survive. The male character is flooded with problems including the consequences of his actions but when the queen gave him a problem to solve the queen spares the young knight’s life. He got helped from an ugly old woman and had to marry her because she saved his life. The readers can see that the old lady knew he would be hers from the beginning when he needed help and the only way to marry the knight was to persuade him into giving the answer to the queen. According to Cook (2010), the ugly woman inside the tale had no power even when she told the correct answer to the young knight who saved his life. The audience can answer questions like “will men really know what love is?” or is it just all the sexual feelings that they get when they see an attractive woman. When the knight gave her the sovereignty she chose to be beautiful but with a faithful mind and the tale ends with a newfound knowledge and love for one another. It can be seen that when the knight gave her the sovereignty she did not choose to be beautiful and unfaithful to him but transform into a beautiful lady and also being loyal to the man she loves. If the knight did not gave her any right to choose to be with him, he could have been in more danger or stuck with an old lady for rest of his life. The feminism appears in different areas from this tale and Chaucher clearly identifies the feminist ideas that bring the readers to think about the relationship between men and women, power and sovereignty in this world.
ReplyDeleteReferences
Cook, A. (2010). Feminism in the Chaucer’s: The wife of bath. Retrieved from http://alisoncook.xomba.com/feminism_chaucers_wife_bath
Question 1
ReplyDelete“Her face was red, her nose running,
Her mouth wide, her teeth all yellow.
Her eyes were bleary, as large as balls,
Her mouth just as large.
Her teeth hung out of her lips,
Her cheeks were as broad as a woman's hips.
He back was as curved as a lute.
Her neck was long and also thick.
Her hair clotted in a heap.
In the shoulders she was a yard across.
Her breasts would have been a load for a horse.
Like a barrel was she made.
To recite the foulness of that lady
There is no tongue fit.
She had ugliness to spare.”
This description tells us how ugly the Loathing Lady was. It is described by King Arthur after he witnesses her for the first time. The ‘loathly lady’ fabula appears to be of Celtic origin, as it is found in Irish myth as a test a king must face before he can claim the sovereignty of the land. According to Carter (2003), from the Loathly lady, the tale follows the model of showing that a true king needs to leave his court and prove himself in the wild locus of the forest. So it is to test whether the King is worthy of the throne. Compared to the description by the Knight,
"She was the ugliest creature"
"Her face was red, nose running"
"She was as ungodly creature"
"For I would be better off dead"
the King is atleast repectful enough to refer to the Loathing Lady as a 'lady' even though he is absolutely repulsed by her. Where is the Knight refers to her as a 'creature' meaning she is unfit for the word 'lady' or even a person. This shows that the King is more respectful than the Knight.
References
Critical Reader 2013
Carter, S. (2003). Coupling the beastly bride and the hunter hunted: What lies behind in Chaucer’s wife of bath’s tale. In The Chaucer review, vol. 37, no. 4, 2003.
Question 2
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
From reading The Wife of Bath's Tale, I was able to spot a fair amount of feminism to say that Chaucer may indeed have been a feminist. The part where King Arthur hands the authority over to the Queen to determine the fate of the Knight, shows that the writer wanted to see that the Queen was equally powerful as the King, which wasn't the case in real life. “Except that the queen and other ladies as well So long prayed the King for grace Until he granted him his life right there, And gave him to the queen, all at her will, To choose whether she would him save or put to death.” (Lines 894 to 898). On my opinion it is possible that Chaucer wanted to see women have more power and authority than they did, because in those times the very idea was ludacris, and women were not to be placed in the same class as men.
Reference
Erier, M. & Kowaleski, M. (1988). Woman and Power in the Middle Ages. Athens, Georgia,.Thomson-Shore, Inc.
Question 6
ReplyDeleteWhat does Revard (1997) suggest about the relationship between language, sex, power and transgression in the English Renaissance?
According to Revard (1997), in the era of English Renaissance the inequality between male and female poets commonly existed. Male poets of this era against female rights, they believe women’s inferiority in the intellectual sphere, beauty and virtues are the merits women should posses but not wit. Female poets are praised firstly as their beauty and sex, rather then simply as a poet. Revard (1997) states that, In 1683, a slender volume that contained three Pindaric odes of “Preface to the Masculine Sex” was to defend the right of women to pursue learning and to use their wit to compost poetry. The triumph of female wit starts from defending the rights and raise the acceptability of women pursuing and contesting where the domain of poetry was focused on male.
Reference
Revard , S.P., Summers, C.J. & Pebworth, T. (Eds).(1997). Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn and The female Pindaric in representing women in renaissance England. Columbia: University of Missouri Press