Tuesday, Oct. 18
Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
Wife of Bath
Her Story
Who said this?
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Virginitee is greet perfeccion,
Virginity is great perfection,
106
And continence eek with devocion,
And continence also with devotion,
107
But Crist, that of perfeccion is welle,
But Christ, who is the source of perfection,
108
Bad nat every wight he sholde go selle
Did not command that every one should go sell
109
Al that he hadde, and gyve it to the poore,
All that he had, and give it to the poor,
110
And in swich wise folwe hym and his foore.
And in such wise follow him and his footsteps.
111
He spak to hem that wolde lyve parfitly;
He spoke to those who would live perfectly;
112
And lordynges, by youre leve, that am nat I.
And gentlemen, by your leave, I am not that.
113
I wol bistowe the flour of al myn age
I will bestow the flower of all my age
114
In the actes and in fruyt of mariage.
In the acts and in fruit of marriage.
G. L. Kitteredge on Wife’s Tale
• “The wife proceeds, with infinite zest, to give the history of her married
life, unfolding, as she does so, another heretical doctrine of a startling
kind, which, in fact, is the real subject of her discourse. This is nothing less
than the dogma that the wife is the head of the house. Obedience is not
her duty, but the husband’s. Men are no match for women, anyway. Let
them sink back to their proper level, and cease their ridiculous efforts to
maintain a position for which they are not fit. Then marriages will all be
happy. She supports her contention with much curious learning derived, of
course, from her fifth and latest husband, who was a professional scholar;
and she overbears opposition by quoting her own experience, which is
better testimony than the citation of authorities. She had always had her
own way. Sometimes she cowed her husbands, and sometimes, she
cajoled them, but none of the five could resist her government. And it
was well for them to yield. This is happy marriage.”
Kitteredge continues
• “Who should know so well as she? Once, indeed, she rises almost to
sublimity, as she looks back on the joy of her life:
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But, Lord Crist! Whan that it remembreth me
Upon my yowthe, and on my jolitee,
It tikleth me aboute myn herte roote
Unto this day it dooth myn herte boote
That I have had my world as in my tyme. (469-73)
Ways to analyze any text, applied to Wife of Bath’s Tale – Rape/
Loving Sex, Youth/ Age, Male/ Female, Obedience/ Control, etc.
Kitteredge concludes
• “This is one of the great dramatic utterances
of human nature, as the Wife of Bath is one of
the most amazing characters that the brain of
man has ever yet conceived.”
Pardoner
Or, another way
Green Knight
• Life – Not Death - Green Knight is both
– But by the end Sir Gawain has gained this status of
“Not Death”
– Not Death/ Not Life – the enchanted castle of Sir
Bertilak?
Imagery – trace an image through the
text
• Books:
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1st line: Her experience vs. “authority” = books
Bible (wedding at Cana
Story of the Samaritan woman
“That gentil text can I wel understonde”
Solomon, Lameth, Abraham,
Clerk tries to rule her by books
“Why that I rente out of his book a leef”
“That I was beten for a book, pardee”
791 “Al sodeynly three leves have I plight
Out of his book, right as he radde, and ede”
Oppositional categories – Who is
caught in between?
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Power
Rape
Books
Age
Male
Money
Answers
Catholic Church
Weakness
Love
Experience / oral tales
Youth
Female
Poverty
Questions
Pagan practices
Overlay onto an older story (or
younger)
• Wife of Bath’s story vs. Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight
– Decapitation is an issue
– Both cannot return to Round Table until they have
achieved death/ knowledge
– Both wander into the land of magic
– Both are controlled by older women (G by aunt
Morgan le Fey and hero by the hag)
– Both are put in bed with women, where sex should
happen
– Then what?
Frames
• Connections between Wife of Bath’s Prologue
and her story
• Connections between the whole of the
Canterbury Tales and her story
• Connections between audience and Wife
• Connections between audience and Tale
• Connections between audience and reading
Baroque art/ Frame
Interpolated Stories
• Midas - the story in Ovid,
• Also, there is no wife. The person who knows
the story is his BARBER. Why wife?
– A reed grew up there which whispers his story to
the world.
– The truth will out.
– How do you think that reflects back on the tale of
the young man and the old hag?
Maps
Metaphors
• Green Knight’s color and ability to survive
beheading
• Green girdle
• Kisses
• Deer/ Boar/ Fox
• Pentangle
• Gold in Beowulf
• Bones held by Pardoner
Mise en abyme
Norman Rockwell doing it
With mirrors
Cameras photographing cameras
What could you answer for the
midterm?
• Who said this?
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Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
When April with its sweet-smelling showers
2
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
3
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
4
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
By which power the flower is created;
Who said this?
• "Lordynges," quod he, "in chirches whan I preche,
"Gentlemen," he said, "in churches when I
preach,
330
I peyne me to han an hauteyn speche,
I take pains to have a loud voice,
331
And rynge it out as round as gooth a belle,
And ring it out as round as goes a belle,
332
For I kan al by rote that I telle.
For I know all by rote that I tell.
333
My theme is alwey oon, and evere was -My theme is always the same, and ever was -334
Radix malorum est Cupiditas.
'Greed is the root of all evil.'
Who told this story?
• "Now lat us sitte and drynke, and make us merie,
"Now let us sit and drink, and make us merry,
884
And afterward we wol his body berie."
And afterward we will bury his body."
885
And with that word it happed hym, par cas,
And with that word it happened to him, by
chance,
886
To take the botel ther the poyson was,
To take the bottle where the poison was,
887
And drank, and yaf his felawe drynke also,
And drank, and gave his fellow drink also,
888
For which anon they storven bothe two.
For which straightway they died, both of the two.
Short essay/ chart questions
• Is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight an epic or chivalric romance?
• What does Sir Gawain and the Green Knight mean?
• Lanval, which was written over 200 years before SGGK, shows a
very different side of the Knights of the Round Table – or does it?
• Which type of criticism seems to you to be the most useful in your
readings (whatever your favorite type of literature)?
• If you were teaching “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath,”
would you feel as if you were teaching a Middle Ages text or
something from the Early Modern Period?
• To you, which seems most interesting and significant in Beowulf:
the structure with its emphasis on death and failure OR the vividly
described battles against monsters OR the heroes and monsters
themselves?