Satisfaction from the Wife of Bath?

After re-reading the Wife of Bath's Tale over the weekend, and going over some of the posts on the blog, I was really intrigued by what Yasmine had to say! She touched upon some of the same things I was thinking about while reading the tale, and since I wasn't able to make it to class on the day of the Wife of Bath's discussion, I though'd I share my thoughts here instead...

I really like what Yasmine had to say about the fact that she didn't find any satisfaction in the ending of the Wife of Bath's Tale, and that by the time she reached the conclusion of the story she had almost forgotten why the Knight had to go on his quest in the first place. She pointed out that those who commit crimes should be punished accordingly and that since the tale ended with a compromise, she wasn't as thrilled with its conclusion.

I was very intrigued by what she said for, even though I agreed with almost all of the points she made throughout her post, I was still able to find a bit of enjoyment and satisfaction from the Wife of Bath's Tale myself. It was really interesting getting to see Yasmine's opinions and interpretations of the tale throughout her post because, to be honest,  I was a bit surprised when I got to the end and read that she wasn't satisfied with the conclusion of the story. Then, of course, I second guessed my own initial satisfaction in the tale! I began to considering weather or not I had found it too easily... was I not supposed to be satisfied with the ending?

After a thinking about things for awhile I finally came to the conclusion that, while I agreed with all of Yasmine's points (especially where she questions weather or not this is a feminist tale), I was able to find satisfaction from the tale during my initial reading due to the fact that I was surprised with how the story played out. In my last post I talked about the believability of Chaucer's stories and how a few of the tales really fell apart for me because I felt like I could see through them or, in other words, I was too easily able to recognize what was about to happen. With the Wife of Bath, however, this was not the case at all. I vaguely remembered bits of the tale from previous readings but for the most part I was reading the story again for the first time. The tale was able to keep my attention throughout its entirety and by its conclusion I found myself satisfied, not in the actual end of the character's narrative itself, but rather in the fact that I had been genuinely immersed in the story while reading - I was surprised to see where the story went for I wasn't expecting the events that played out.

If I had to analyze the story in terms of its narrative message alone, or if I were simply reading the tale in order to do so, I do not believe I would find as much satisfaction in it. I believe I would be right there with Yasmine at this point, wishing the Knight had been killed off by some lovely goddess-like woman he marries. However, accepting the tale as it is and simply reading it for enjoyment without getting too analytically deep into what it is trying to communicate, I feel like there is a bit of satisfaction to be found it in... even if in my idealized feminist world the Knight would have been justly punished for his crime!

Identity

In our discussion of the WoB Tuesday and all the posts regarding her tale, there has been much talk about how she uses scripture and the story of King Midas. I have been thinking about these issues since I read the tale over the weekend, but it wasn't until today that I could pose my question properly.

While doing research for another course, I have been reading a lot about memory, myth, politics, culture, and identity. The relationship between memory (individual and collective) or history and identity stood out in reference to the WoB. As Andrew pointed out in his post "The Other Half," the Wife of Bath tends to only draw what she deems necessary from scripture in order to prove her point. We also discussed her manipulation of the Midas myth in order to prove a point about wives in general, at least that's how I see it now.

Allan Megill, an intellectual historian, sees memory as something that "haunts history" (193). He states, "the Halbwachsian model holds that memory is determined by identity...His account of historical memory deals with how an identity, whose integrity at a certain moment is assumed, goes about inventing a past congruent with that identity..." (Megill 194-95). I found this particularly interesting in relation to the WoB because she seems to be doing the same thing with scripture and mythology. Simply, she is "manipulating," for lack of a better term, what she needs in order to suit her identity, or at least the identity Chaucer associates with her. She is a woman who appears to desire complete control in marriage as evident in her prologue. Chaucer has her quoting just what she needs from scripture in order to help form this identity. Only the necessary elements of scripture are used to help form her identity, something we might see akin to selective reading today.

When it comes to the Midas myth, it appears that Chaucer has the WoB doing the same thing yet again. Chaucer changes details of the myth to make the wife appear as the culprit. This change helps form identity in a couple of ways. First, it paints women in a slightly flawed state, but, more importantly, it goes to reinforce the theme of women in control. Midas' wife was the only one who could have outed him. Of all the people he could have had cutting his hair and trust with his secret, he chose his wife. I am thinking that this is just another example of how Chaucer is using myth or history, depending on how you look at it, as a means to help build a solid identity for the WoB. (I could expand on this more, but I think I might save that for my close reading paper!)

In relation to the WoB and the Tale, and any other character and tale for that matter, the tales could serve as "memory," helping to form the identity of the characters. Imagination, for some philosophers, is a part of memory. The tales themselves serve as a type of artificial memory used to build the identities and personalities of the characters in the CT. Just as an example, take a look at Custaunce. We see her identified with certain biblical characters throughout "The Man of Law's Tale." Those associations with other figures helps to form her identity in the tale.

This may be rather confusing for some people, and it is still a bit confusing in my head. However, I thought this might be an interesting take on the WoB and all the other characters and tales. If you can manage for follow my crazy train of thought, please let me know what you think.

Works Cited:

Megill, Allan. from "History, Memory, and Identity." The Collective Memory Reader. Editors Jeffery            K. Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi and Daniel Levy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 193-97.    Print.

Connections between Jankin's tale and Alisoun's tale?

OK, so here's the deal. I think that there is a lot of correlation/interconnectedness/play between the story of Jankin, Alisoun's hubby #5, and Alisoun's tale. But it will take someone smarter than me to put it all together. So here's the table of correlations(ish) that I made (oh, and you who would yell at me for name spelling show me Chaucer's official name spelling first) (oh, and I wouldn't trust these quotes to be perfect, because Word kept trying to "help" me fix my spelling):

This is a comparison of Alisoun’s tale of her 5^th husband, and her Tale.

Alisoun’s tale of her 5th husband	WOB’s Tale
Alisoun spends much time talking about why lack of chastity is OK	Starts by telling how Arthur’s Britain has been replace by Britain where limitours accost women.
Alisoun to 3 good husbands 257-262 Thow seyst, some folk desire us for richesse, Somme for oure shap, and somme for oure fairnesse, And some for she kan either sing or daunce, And some for gentillesse and daliaunce, Somme for hir hands and hir armes smale— Thus goth all to the devel, by thy tale!	I think this sounds like how the knight would have originally evaluated women. Also, compare first list of women’s likes that  knight gets… 919—949 Richesse Honour Jolynesse Rich array Lust abed Being widowed or wed (compare next list with things antifeminists list as faults of women) Flattery Being free Being thought wise Be trustworthy
265-302 —goes on to say “thou sayest” basically that ugly women are always looking for sex, no man wants to suffer by having an ugly wife, and women show their worst side after marriage	Still matches knight’s first views. 998—knight starts seeing really ugly old lady
503—finally introduces 5th husband	882—introduces knight
505-507—tells 5th hubby’s crime (very shortly after introducing him	884-888—tells knight's crime
	894-898—Guinivere asks for mercy
	904-905—knight gets sentence.
530-542—tells how she tells all 4th hubby’s secrets to best friend	951-982—Midas story
543-626—Alisoun and clerk meet while 4th hubby is gone all the way to wedding #5
632-636—the crime, ripping out a page, being hit, becoming deaf	OK, bear with me, but there are some ways to connect this with the rape of virginity. Taking hearing away, ripping pages away (neither of which can be replaced). Bodily violence.
Jankin’s stories….Alisoun is frozen unable to escape stories.	Knight’s wanderings…Knight is unable to stay still but forced to wander to hear stories
669 —introduces Jankin’s book
711—starts telling why she was beaten for a book
715-774—Jankin’s list of bad female lovers and wives	Also the list above from 919-949: lists of what women want, as opposed to what women as evil objects are
775-787—Jankin’s proverbs “bet is”--is this comparable to Alisoun’s “thou sayest”?
790-793—Alisoun rips out three pages and hits Jenkin on the cheke	1055-1082--Loathly lady forces knight to marry her
795-807—Jankin hits Alisoun and feels really bad	1083-1212--Knight pouts in bed while lady lectures him on gentillesse
808-809—Alisoun hits back	1219—1227—Loathly lady gives knight the choice
811-812 But at the laste, with muchel care and wo, We fille accorded by us selven two.	1228-1229—Knight thinks hard But ate laste he seide in this manere:
813-814 He yaf me al the bridel in min hond, To have the governaunce of hous and lond,	1230-1231— My lady and my love, and wif so deere, I put me in youre wise governaunce.
819-821—remember we said that this was the hubby giving her power but also reminding her that their reputation was in her hands… And that he seide, “Min owene trewe wif, Do as thee lust the terme of al thy lif; Keep thin honour, and keep eek min estaat,”	1232-1233— Cheseth youreself which may be moost pleasaunce, And moost honour to yow and me also.
822-825— After that day we hadden nevere debaat. God help me so, I was to him as kinde As any wif from Denmark unto Inde, And also trewe, and so was he to me.	1240-1244— For, by my trouthe, I wol be to yow bothe- This is to seyne, ye, bothe fair and good. I pray to God  that I mote sterven wood, But I to yow be also good and trewe As evere was wif, sin that the world was newe.
826-827— I pray to God that sit in magestee, So blesse his soul, for his mercy deere!	1257-end Prays for young, meek husbands that wives can outlive. And to shorten the lives of bad husbands with the plague.

King Midas' Ass Ears

While reading the WOB's Tale, I was very intrigued by the story of the wife who could not keep her husband's secret. As the WOB tells us to in line 981, ("The remenant of the tale, if ye wol heere,/Redeth Ovid, and there ye may it leere.") I decided to look up this story.

Image found here

What I found was a completely different telling of the story.

The version I found the most often was that of King Midas' barber being unable to keep the secret of his ears. He digs a hole in the ground and spills the secret and the hills then echo the secret back loudly so that everyone hears it. The wikipedia page for King Midas has this version and this retelling for children also has the version with the barber.

Another version I found, which seems to be from a German retelling, has King Midas being the one unable to keep his secret. You can read about this here.

So why does the WOB tell this story the way she does? It could be that there are different versions floating around at the time Chaucer is writing and this version is the one he is familiar with.

However, I believe he purposely chose this telling. Chaucer chose to attribute to Ovid, this story of the wife betraying Midas' secret. Ovid's version is one that has the barber. Chaucer would have known Ovid's stories and would have known what version he used.

Chaucer would have known Ovid's stories and would have known what version he used. Chaucer chose to change this through the WOB. He is telling us about the WOB by doing this.

We know that WOB is a well learned woman. She knows her bible, and she also continually references other literary works. However, with this, she is discredited. This change of the story makes me wonder whether the rest of her references were correct. I find myself wanting to go back and look at everything she said and fact-check everything.

Chaucer uses this story to discredit the WOB and in doing so, I start to wonder if maybe Chaucer is not as proto-feminist in his portrayal with the WOB as I thought. If she is wrong here, and could be wrong otherwise, she does not sound educated but instead she sounds as though she’s good at appearing educated. She sounds like a fool.

Maybe Chaucer uses this change in the story to say something else about the WOB. Does anyone else have any ideas?

The Other Half

Here is a strange hypothesis. Reading through the Wife of Bath’s Prologue again gave me an idea; I’m not sure it’s a good one but here it is. One of the questions we discussed in class was whether the Wife of Bath was supposed to be sympathetic or not. Perhaps the question beneath that is: is the Wife (I’m going to call her that through the rest of this. It’s easier) presented as herald of positive change in women’s role or is she the model for women of what not to do and for men who not to marry? I’ll argue it’s neither. What if her presence on the pilgrimage and her extraordinarily long prologue are not comments on women’s behavior at all, but rather on men’s? Let me explain a little.

            The prologue opens in the middle of an apologetic discussion. The Wife is making a case for her situation and beliefs, pulling from the Bible and classical literature, yet it seems that these bits are given a rather lose interpretation or are half quoted.  Not being an expert on Ptolemy, I’ll stick to the arguments she relies on the Bible for. I could probably go on and on about almost every reference she makes to the Bible but I want to focus on a particular passage that caught my eye. Speaking of her husband (I don’t know which one particularly), the Wife pulls out a pair of ideas one from Corinthians and the other from Ephesians:

I have the power during al my lif

Upon his proper body, and nat he.

Right thus th’ Apostle tolde it unto me,

And bad oure housbonds for to love us wel;

Al this sentice me liketh everydel.’ (159-162).

It is interesting that she ends the statement with “Al this sentice me liketh everydel.” She is implying that she has considered the whole statement and likes every bit of it. According to her she this is a solid basis for her argument. That however is literally half the story. I think it is safe to assume that many if not most of her audience would be familiar with the passages she is referring to. I can’t read Latin and nor do I have the Bible in middle English (which of course she probably didn’t have either) but here are the passages from the New King James Version which I think is close enough for my purposes:

1 Corinthians 7:4 “The wife does not have authority over her body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”

Ephesians 5:22,25 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord…. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and game himself for her.”

The Wife of Bath has pulled exactly half of these passages for her argument, which is what she wanted and nothing more. Her argument is based on what she wants her argument to be. From there she can find support for it because she wants it to be there. I could go on about this but I wondered: how often was the other half, and just the other half, used in medieval society? I’m no expert but what I remember from class discussions and a little of my own digging was that the women was very nearly the property of her husband in medieval society. No doubt our society emphasis the negatives disproportionately with the reality but there is also no doubt (correct me if I’m wrong Dr. M-B) that Medieval English law favored the man more than the women in most regards.

            Sorry I’ve been going on for a while now, don’t worry I’m almost done. Right before we learn that the Wife’s arguments (at least in this instance) are based on only what she wanted she uses what I thought rather severe words to describe the position of her husband to her; “Which shal be bothe my dettour and my thral” (155). Once I got past the strength of these descriptions (he shall be her debtor and slave) I realized a similarity with something Custaunce said in The Man of Law’s Tale. She said, “Wommen are born to thralldom and penaunce” (Man of Law’s Tale 286). The similarity is striking. Both contain “thrall” or “thralldom” and both contain ideas of debt or “penaunce,” which is paying for some wrong doing or debt.  It seems then that the Wife seeks to place men where men place women. All this to say that it seems that the Wife of Bath has been painted like this to point out the extreme lopsidedness that men assume with the same flawed logic. I think that as she repulses her audience they cannot but realize she has exactly the same basis for what she does as they do. The only difference is that she uses the other half of the whole.

            I apologize for making this so long. A applaud your patience for making it this far. Now you know why I only brought up part of it in class.

Pilgrimage

I was talking with Prof. MB about the WOB being sterile. She wrote back "Perhaps that is why she's so vocal about her sexuality - to make up for the perceived lack? That she is still on some level trying to conceive?" It got me thinking. I know men would try other partners when they couldn't conceive. That goes back to Sarai and Hagar at least. I know that the idea existed of women using alternate sources (other guys) when they couldn't conceive for their husbands. I think (but I don't have the book with me) that there is a nasty letter by Henry IV saying that Richard II's mom used that method to conceive Richard II.

I think the WOB is someone who jokes through her pain. Choosing not to conceive, and not being able to conceive, are very different emotionally. It always hurts to have choice taken away.

I think I remember Prof. MB asking why these people are on pilgrimage. I wonder if Alisoun's many pilgrimages may be to seek an end to her infertility. She isn't the type to talk about her pain if it is there. It could also be why she thinks so much about what constitutes a good woman.

The knight may be on pilgrimage because he is a "perfit gentil knight." But maybe he also has things he wanted to atone for, like being at Alexandria. The Reeve is grappling with old age, which could inspire a pilgrimage to ask God for healing, or to make things right before the end. I don't know about the others. While there are obvious things it would be good for them to ask forgiveness for, I'm not sure what actually motivates them.

I also wonder if their stories connect with their actual motivations.

The Wife of Bath: A Symbol of Corruption?

The Wife of Bath is not the traditional bride or wife, but is one of the more engaging characters of the Canterbury Tales. It is the controversy of her speech that makes her an interesting female character as evident in her habit of using the Bible to justify her marital beliefs and practices.  Early on she mentions that "God bad us for to wexe and multiplye," therefore she is in line with God's command, for marriage leads to reproduction; therefore, multiple marriages might equate many children (28). The Wife also goes on to say that a man as holy as Abraham could not be in the wrong by having multiple wives; therefore, she is not (55). In Genesis, Abraham is said to have children with Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah and possibly more. There is some debate as to whether or not he was married to Hagar, but did have multiple wives.

An interesting connection to this comical justification of her lifestyle is church corruption of the Middle Ages. The Wife uses biblical knowledge while the Church used biblical authority to justify actions that are or may not have been in line with biblical principles. From the presentation on politics we learned of the opportunities for people to rise in the social structure of the Middle Ages due to the Plague. Many clergy were also lost to the Plague meaning that those less able or deserving rose in the ranks of the churches. One example of the corruption that arose from this shift in clergy was the practice of pilgrimages. The Church promised people forgiveness of sins through participation in a pilgrimage to a holy site, such as the pilgrimage the characters of the Canterbury Tales are on. 

Click here to learn a bit about the corruption of the Church.