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Geoffrey Chaucer: Feminist Or Not?
By Michael Carosone
Introduction: “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”
Her name is Alisoun, but she is better known as “The Wife of Bath.” An excellent
weaver and better wife, she has had five husbands— the fifth was half her age. She is a large
woman with a gap between her front teeth and red, rosy cheeks. She flashes her bright, scarlet
red stockings as well as her sexuality and promiscuity. In the “General Prologue” of The
Canterbury Tales, Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath:
A good wif was ther of biside Bathe,
But she was somdel deef, and that was scathe.
Of clooth-makyng she hadde swich an haunt...
Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,...
Boold was hir face, and fair, and reed of howe.
She was a worthy womman al hir lyve:
Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve,... (Benson 30)
Is she a feminist? Yes. She is openly sensual and openly honest; she is open with her
beliefs and ideas, and is not afraid to speak her mind. Her strong will to survive is only
surpassed by her strong will to defend her position as a woman, and the positions of other
women. Is Geoffrey Chaucer as feminist? You must complete the journey that is this essay to
discover the answer to such an important and controversial question.
To defend her position, the Wife of Bath refers to King Solomon, who had many wives,
and to St. Paul’s admonishment that it is better to marry than to burn. She questions the Bible,
and asks why women cannot marry more than once if men can have many wives. She shows
knowledge of the Bible, and challenges anyone to show her that God commanded virginity.
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She thinks sex is “good.” She knows that virginity would not produce a population.
Furthermore, she believes that sexual organs are made for functional purposes and for pleasure.
She enjoys sex, and has been willing to have sex whenever her husbands have wanted.
Yes, the Wife of Bath is somewhat of a stereotypical woman of the Middle Ages.
However, that should not diminish the fact that she is also a pioneer for the women of her time
because she is ahead of her own time. She is also a breath of fresh air because she is unlike the
other female characters of The Canterbury Tales, whether a pilgrim or a character in a pilgrim’s
tale. She is unapologetic. She is not subservient and timid. She is not ashamed. And she does
not need a man to think for her. She is bold, proud, and independent. Feminist critics want to
read more female characters similar to her.
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale: An Analysis
Unlike the other tales, the prologue to “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is longer than the actual
tale because it is in the prologue that she shares information about her life and experiences. She
has had a long life, and has experienced much. And the more she drinks, while talking, the more
she confesses about her husbands and herself.
In her prologue, she makes it known that she has followed the rule of experience rather
than the rule of authority: “‘Experience, though noon auctoritee / Were in this world, is right
ynogh for me / To speke of wo that is in mariage’” (Benson 105). She explains that she sees
nothing wrong with having had five husbands and cannot understand Jesus’s rebuke to the
women at the well who also had five husbands: “Biside a welle, Jhesus, God and man, / Spak in
repreeve of the Samaritan: / ‘Thou hast yhad fyve housbondes,’ quod he,” (105). Instead, she
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prefers the biblical command to go forth and multiply: “God bad us for to wexe and multiplye”
(105). The prologue also advertises her need for a sixth husband: “Welcome the sixte, whan that
evere he shal” (105). And although, her tale that follows is not about her life with any one of her
five husbands, her prologue does introduce the theme of “sovereignty,” which she has gained
over her husbands, and which motivates the plot of her tale.
The Wife of Bath tells a tale of a young knight who rapes a beautiful young maiden. The
people are repulsed by the knight’s behavior, and demand justice. Although the law demands
that the knight be beheaded, the queen begs the king to be allowed to determine the knight’s fate.
The queen then gives the knight a year to discover what women most desire. The knight
explains his quest to an old woman. She promises him the answer if he will do what she
demands for saving his life. He agrees. A year passes, and the knight returns to the queen with
the answer. He tells her that women most desire sovereignty over their husbands: “‘Wommen
desiren to have sovereynetee / As wel over hir housbond as hir love,’” (119). Having supplied
him with the correct answer, the old woman demands that she become the knight’s wife and
love: “‘that thou me take unto thy wyf, / For wel thou woost that I have kept thy lyf.’” (119). In
agony, the knight agrees to the old woman’s demand.
The Wife of Bath is the old woman telling a tale about an old woman who finds a
husband and love. I cannot help but to ask why the Wife of Bath, as independent and strongminded as she is, is in need of a husband. Maybe it is because she truly enjoys having
sovereignty over a husband. Maybe it is because she truly enjoys sex. Or maybe it is because as
a woman in a patriarchal society she does not know any other role to play besides that of a wife.
Here is where feminist criticism has been an effective approach to analyzing, explaining, and
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understanding The Canterbury Tales, especially the Wife of Bath, her prologue, and her tale.
Some feminist critics argue that the Wife is a feminist, while others argue that she is not.
Furthermore, some feminist critics see Chaucer as pro-feminist, while others do not. Whatever
their views, feminist critics create intelligent, insightful, knowledgeable, thought-provoking, and
effective arguments.
Elaine Tuttle Hansen’s Effective Feminist Approach: Chaucer As Antifeminist
In her book, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender, Elaine Tuttle Hansen “is distressed that
Chaucer allows the Wife of Bath, who seems to want to challenge the medieval antifeminist
rejection of women, in the end to accept it” (Beidler 109). Hansen is troubled and concerned that
the old woman in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” rewards the rapist knight by giving him the answer
to the queen’s question therefore allowing him to live and escape punishment. Hansen insists
that the Wife of Bath is the result of a male poet who creates a character to be “a feminine
monstrosity who is the product of the masculine imagination against which she ineffectively and
only superficially rebels” (Hansen 35).
Other critics may apologize for Chaucer’s limitations as a writer when writing about
women. However, Hansen claims that such apologies come from other critics’ desires to flatter
Chaucer because they view him as one of the literary heroes of the English language. Hansen
believes that Chaucer was a man who failed to understand and depict women— half of
humanity— fairly. She makes no effort to hide the truth, unlike other critics who believe only
what they want to believe, and what is convenient to believe.
In her book, Hansen divides the history of Chaucer criticism on the Wife of Bath into
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“three political ages: the prefeminist, the feminist, and the postfeminist” (40). The prefeminist
era— Chaucer’s time until the 1960s— views Chaucer as a “literary hero, a great, wise, godlike
creator of characters whose human foibles he captures and exposes, be it lovingly or sternly”
(41). The feminist era, which began in the 1970s, is when critics view Chaucer as a male writer
who did not understand women very well, portraying them in a negative way, and who was
unable to rise above the antifeminism of his age. And the postfeminist era, which began in the
1980s, is when Hansen explains many male critics not focusing on the issues raised by feminism
because they admit that, as males, they are unable to understand the feminist issues. Hansen is
most troubled and concerned about the postfeminist era because she believes that its views will
further exclude women readers and critics from Chaucer: “the scholarly community, along with
much of the real world, will return easily and quietly to the prefeminist status quo, where there is
no place for the women reader and critic of Chaucer” (46). And it is very important that
women’s voices are heard in the male-dominated world of Chaucer scholarship so that new and
different ideas are introduced and discussed.
In his book, The Wife of Bath: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism, Peter G. Beidler
states that in her essay for his book (pp. 273-89) “Hansen elaborates further on her view that the
Wife of bath is the product of a male writer who reproduces and reinforces male attitudes” (110).
In her essay, Hansen concludes with a powerful statement: “It is critical to remember that it is
Chaucer as male poet, not the Wife as female character, who simultaneously escapes the
constrains of gender and enjoys the privileges of maleness” (Beidler 288). Hanson has focused
my attention to the fact that Chaucer is misunderstood and has a talent for creating irony: “The
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quest to determine what the master of irony really meant can still take our minds off our worries
about women, as it has for so many centuries” (288). Chaucer’s antifeminist attitude and ideas
may have been disguised behind his talent for writing irony and the antifeminist views of the
male critics who have spent lifetimes idolizing and protecting him. Also, Hansen effectively
raises my interest by writing: “If Chaucer is the Father of English poetry, we should not wonder
that it has been so difficult, over the centuries, for his daughters to write” (288).
I am not sure whether or not I totally agree with Hansen’s argument. She may be too
harsh when judging Chaucer, forgetting that he was a male writer living in medieval England,
when women were viewed differently than the time in which she writes. However, under feminist
criticism, Hansen creates an effective approach for me to read and analyze The Canterbury Tales.
She thinks about renaming “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” to “Alisoun’s Tale,” thereby giving the
Wife an identity, turning her into a person, instead of a man’s object. And I must quote Hansen
when she makes an effective final argument and warns:
But if we remain focused on Chaucer’s intentions, for good
or bad, we repeat the fundamentally antifeminist move made
possible by the Wife’s narratives. We center our attention
still on the dangerous male (poet or rapist); he is the one we
care to condemn or save (from lack of literary merit or death),
while the woman in the picture (garrulous Wife or silent
maiden) fades into the background. (Beidler 288)
Carolyn Dinshaw’s Effective Feminist Approach: Chaucer As Feminist
In her book, Sexual Poetics, Carolyn Dinshaw proposes reading as a “gendered” activity
and using the metaphor of the female body as text, and males as the “glossators” and
“translators” of such texts. She has much to explain on “patriarchal thinking” and “reading like a
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man.” Thus, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an allegorical text and, as Dinshaw asserts, is a text
that opposes male glosses, because its narrator, herself, opposes male glosses. The Wife of Bath,
herself, in her “Prologue,” even mentions Dinshaw’s argument and theme when she states the
following: “Men may devyne and glosen, up and doun.” Readers and critics must realize that the
Wife of Bath is confident and speaks out against patriarchal discourse and clerical teaching—
such a fact cannot, and must not, be denied. Ultimately, Dinshaw professes that “The Wife of
Bath’s Tale” is included in The Canterbury Tales due to Chaucer’s need to voice an opposition to
the patriarchal discourse. Dinshaw believes that through the Wife of Bath, “Chaucer is able to
reform and still participate in patriarchal discourse” (116). Such a belief seems to imply that
Chaucer was an early feminist who was unable to announce himself as such because of the
misogyny of his time; therefore, he voiced his opinions through the Wife of Bath. Dinshaw
shows that Chaucer cannot be labeled an antifeminist, automatically. She also praises Chaucer
for writing such a character and tale: “The Wife thus articulates the misogynistic hermeneutic...to
make it accommodate the feminine” (116). The fact that Chaucer was born and lived during the
medieval times explains his masculine views of his age; however, through the Wife of Bath, he
allows his readers— and maybe even forces his readers— to “imagine feminine desire, feminist
readings, and the reform of patriarchy” (117). But maybe Dinshaw gives too much credit to
Chaucer. Maybe he was an antifeminist, and maybe the Wife of Bath is a poorly constructed and
stereotypical female character, written by a misogynous, male-chauvinist.
Priscilla Martin and Alcuin Blamires’s Effective Feminist Approaches: The Wife Parallels
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Her Creator And Knows How To Survive
In her book, Chaucer’s Women: Nuns, Wives, and Amazons, Priscilla Martin focuses on
Chaucer’s success in writing rich and diverse female characters. She does not center her
attention on his limitations in portraying women, accurately. In a way, she shows a balance of
feminist ideas by realizing and understanding Chaucer’s limitations as a male writer writing
about women, and not punishing him for his weaknesses and ignorance. She does not place him
on the high pedestal as other critics have done. She is fond of the Wife of Bath, and writes:
The Wife of Bath shares [Chaucer’s] delight in fictional and
narrative diversity. Of the pilgrims she is the closest to
Chaucer. Like her creator, she criticizes through comedy,
she weighs authority against experience and experience
against authority, she is aware of the sexuality in textuality
and she jollily subverts the conventions of male authorship. (217)
And according to Alcuin Blamires, Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An
Anthology of Medieval Texts, the Wife of Bath is a “survivor of a lifetime in the sex war...and a
guide to younger recruits who she hopes will learn under her tutelage to use men as she feels they
have used her” (159). The Wife of Bath appears to have an uncanny resemblance to the medieval
stereotypical female figure of La Vieilla, or the Old Woman, taken from Le Roman de la
Rose/The Romance of the Rose. La Vieilla is also a “survivor of a lifetime in the sex war.” I
must add that I have read many works of literature in which the female characters are true
survivors. And I have written much on the theme of survival as it appears in literature, focusing
on the strong-willed female characters, such as Hester Prynne, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The
Scarlet Letter, and the obstacles they must overcome in order to survive, and that they survive
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when the men do not, surprisingly, yet obviously. Hence, in Chaucer’s defense on whether he is
feminist or antifeminist, he deserves kudos for making the true survivor of his tales a woman. I
think that it is always a compliment to be viewed as a survivor, someone who lives to tell about
surfing the scabrous waves of life. The Wife of Bath should be honored, and I think that she is.
Jill Mann’s Effective Feminist Approach: She Is On Chaucer’s Side Because He Is On Hers
Jill Mann insists that Chaucer is supportive of women, in her book, Geoffrey Chaucer.
So, I ask: Would an antifeminist be supportive of women? No. However, simply because Mann
views Chaucer as a supporter of women does not mean that he is a feminist. The question of
whether Chaucer is feminist or antifeminist is complex, and it warrants a complex answer. She
believes that he is “on the side of women” because all of the positive role models in The
Canterbury Tales are women, and the male characters are flawed:
If feminism has a contribution to make to Chaucer studies...
it is...that it enables us to see the full significance of what is
already there in his text...so simple a fact as that the
CanterburyTales...contains not a single example of the
story-type that embodies its ideals in the central figure
of a male hero. Instead, the tales that mediate serious
ideals are focused on a series of women: Constance,
Griselda, Prudence, and Cecilia. (3-4)
Mann believes that “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” diminishes the antifeminism that
Alisoun finds so demeaning, while “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” condemns a rape of a young
woman, by a knight, so effectively. In her tale, at the end, the Wife of Bath is making clear that
the knight must submit to the authority of a woman.
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Susan K. Hagen’s Effective Feminist Approach: An Apology
Susan Hagen is a feminist who apologizes for Chaucer’s limitations in writing female
characters. In her article, “The Wife of Bath: Chaucer’s Inchoate Experiment in Feminist
Hermeneutics,” Hagen questions why the Wife of Bath, or maybe Chaucer himself, notes the
“discrepancy of character that allows an apparently strong-willed female speaker to give a rude,
aggressive, and insensitive male character [the knight/rapist] his heart’s desire” (106) by
rewarding him with a lovely young bride. Hagen forgives Chaucer:
While one might hold Chaucer responsible within his
limitations, one ought not blame him for them. Even
if his experiment in feminist hermeneutics is inchoate,
he was thwarted by limitations that his critics are beginning
to grow beyond only now, six hundred years later. (119)
She makes clear that Chaucer was a “fourteenth-century male poet of privilege” (105). But can
he be forgiven for being an antifeminist simply because of the time in which he lived? Yes, I
think so, only because a person is conditioned to think a certain way depending upon the
environment in which the person lives, and the status quo of which the person is obligated to
follow. All people are products of the societies in which they live.
M. H. Abrams Defines Feminism And My Thesis Is Supported
In his book, A Glossary of Literary Terms, M. H. Abrams writes: “As a distinctive and
concerted approach to literature, feminist criticism was not inaugurated until late in the 1960s”
(88). He states that “[a] major interest of feminist critics in English-speaking countries has been
to reconstitute the ways we deal with literature in order to do justice to female points of view,
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concerns, and values” (90). And in order to understand the powerful impact feminists have had
on literary criticism within the past three decades— and to understand the effectiveness of
feminist criticism on literature— Abrams explains:
The various feminisms, however, share certain assumptions
and concepts that underlie the diverse ways that individual
critics explore the factor of sexual difference and privilege
in the production, the form and content, the reception, and
the critical analysis and evaluation of works of literature:
(1) The basic view is that Western civilization is pervasively
patriarchal... (2) ...concepts of gender are largely, if not
entirely, cultural constructs that were generated by the
pervasive patriarchal biases of our civilization... (3) The
further claim is that this patriarchal ideology pervades
those writings which have been traditionally considered
great literature, and which until recently have been written
by men for men. (89)
For the purpose of this essay, I have used Abrams’ definition of feminist criticism to
argue that it is an effective approach when analyzing, explaining, and understanding The
Canterbury Tales, especially “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” Also, I believe that I have created a
balance between the feminist critics who view Chaucer as feminist, and the feminist critics who
view him as antifeminist.
When I began my research for this essay, I thought that my initial question, which is also
the title of this essay— Geoffrey Chaucer: Feminist or Not? — would be answered easily. Well,
I was wrong. After reading a plethora of feminist criticism, I realized that my question was not
simple, and has been the topic of much debate.
As a man, I think that if I answer my question I will do so with a male’s perspective and
bias, therefore, invalidating the answer as well as the question. However, I only have my own
perspective to formulate an answer. All any of us have are our own perspectives. But I will
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answer with an open-mind— a mind, which has been educated on the subject matter— so as to
not provide a biased answer. Thus, I do not think that Chaucer should be labeled as antifeminist.
I also do not think that he should be categorized as feminist. He was a writer who wrote in a
time when women were oppressed, abused, and subservient to men, and his work reveals such as
much as it is guilty of such. Stereotypes of women were common in his time, as well as in his
work. He also paints positive portraits of women, such as the Wife of Bath. Also, he includes
stereotypes of men in his tales, and does not place them in positive roles. Some stereotypes are
based on truth, but most are not. And I believe that it is safe to state that women, over the
centuries, have proven their stereotypes false. Maybe the Wife of Bath has helped them to do so.
Conclusion: “The Franklin’s Tale”
Dorigen, the female character of “The Franklin’s Tale,” is a stereotypical medieval
woman: obedient, dependent on her husband, Arveragus, centers her entire life around her
husband, faithful, loyal, genteel (gentilesse), honorable, desired by Aurelius, prone to suicide
when in trouble. She is the opposite of the Wife of Bath and the Wife’s female characters. But
then, Dorigen is a female character created by a man— the franklin— who is a landowner who
enjoys fine living and fine women. He does not have such a high regard for women, and thinks
of them as objects, the same way he thinks of his land and wealth. Chaucer does not create the
character of Dorigen to stereotype and insult women; rather, he writes her as a creation of a man
to show a man’s false and ignorant view of a woman. Actually, “The Franklin’s Tale” condemns
men, not women. Thus, Chaucer condemns men, not women.
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Works Cited
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Seventh Edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace
College Publishers, 1999.
Beidler, Peter G. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism: Geoffrey Chaucer: The Wife of Bath.
Boston: Bedford Books, 1996.
Blamires, Alcuin. Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Larry Benson, ed. Third Edition. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1987.
Dinshaw, Carolyn. Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
Hagen, Susan K. “The Wife of Bath: Chaucer’s Inchoate Experiment in Feminist hermeneutics.”
Rebels and Rivals: The Contestive Spirit in the Canterbury Tales. Susanna Greer Fein,
David Raybin, and Peter C. Braeger, editors. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1991. 10524.
Mann, Jill. Geoffrey Chaucer [Feminist Readings Series]. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1991.
Martin, Priscilla. Chaucer’s Women: Nuns, Wives, and Amazons. Iowa City: University of Iowa
Press, 1990.