Review of Week 5: Sept 18

Tuesday, September 18 (9:25)
by Attya Davis

Overview:

We began class by discussing when the topic for our papers are due (Tuesday, 18th at 11pm) and when the actually paper is due (Wednesday, 26th at 11pm.) We were reminded that our midterm is Thursday, Oct. 4th and that there would be no class on Thursday.

When began our discussion on The Wife of Bath’s Prologue by referring to what the editors said about the story (Broadview, pg. 298.) Dr. Seaman noted that she is referred to as “extreme and ambiguous,” and it was our job to figure out how. She also noted that the editors thought the story was so ambiguous that it was hard to find what the “moral” should have been. Two different ideas about this were presented to use on the Wife’s tale. They were:

1. The story was a warning against unbridled carnality.

2. The Wife of Bath was admired for her independence, courage, and vitality.

Dr. Seaman then gave us a thesis that we would try to prove or disprove with our class discussion.

Thesis: In the figure of the wife, Chaucer demonstrated some of the effects of marriage being primarily an economical and sexual relationship.

We looked at the scene that described the Wife of Bath in the general prologue. It’s noted that she is lively and hot-tempered, and a good seamstress among other things. Dr. Seaman notes that the Wife of Bath’s prologue (pg. 300) is a confessio.

We briefly discussed how the Wife of Bath can be seen as a figure like how the Seven Deadly Sins would take on human form and talk about themselves as if their lifestyles were great instead of dangerous. We learned that her character is based off of a character from a 13th century poem “Romance of the Rose.” The character La Vielle was a whore who essentially bragged about how great of a whore and madam she was and warmed men against women.

We take note of how the Wife of Bath challenges the ideas of both misogyny and misogamy. This was possibly in response to the poems and stories being written during the time against marriage due to the church’s emphasis on celibacy. The wife actually uses scriptures to disprove this idea.

At this point, we begin to look directly at the prologue then break it up into three parts:

1. The wife’s makes her case in support of marriage (first 200 lines)

2. She describes her good husbands, then her first bad one (next 200 lines)

3. She describes her fifth husband

We begin discussion with the first section and why the Wife of Bath feels she has any authority to be speaking on behalf of marriage. We make a reference to how women would go to Priest who had no experience with marriage life or being a wife, but it was completely normal to trust their opinion. The Wife of Bath feels like as someone who experienced marriage five times, she has much more experience and authority to speak of it.

The wife uses glossing to make her case. She takes Paul from the bible and essentially says that Paul’s view on marriage is incorrect because if God intended for no one to marry, marriage would be condemned and He would not have said to marry and multiply. She clarifies that she thinks virginity is a good thing, but so is marriage.

We then move on to her husbands. She talks about how they were good husbands because they were wealthy, old and submissive. She talks about how she would use sex to get what she wanted from them and how it gave her control of the relationship. She also talks about her fourth husband in this section, which is one of the bad ones because he cheated on her and she was always trying to make him believe that she did the same, although she did not.

The final section is dedicated to her fifth husband, Jankyn. She admits that she had to work hard to get him because he was half her age, so she had to basically become the woman version of her first three husbands. She then admits that she actually loved him. She relays the story of the “Book of Wicked Wives” and how she tore pages from the book and hit Jankyn. He got angry and hit her back causing her to almost pass out on the floor. When she awakes, she accuses him of trying to murder her for her land. He apologizes then grants her control of the money, land, and his “tongue.”

After discussing the prologue, we go back to the two ideas we were presented with at the beginning about the story being a warning or possible a praise to the wife. We determined that there are no consequences laid out to be a warning, and it’s not clear whether she should have been praised.

Noteworthy Quotes:

The Wife of Bath’s Description in the general prologue, pg. 244 starting at line 445.

Key Terms:

confessio- autobiographical like story that has some sort of honesty in it

misogyny- hatred against women

misogamy- hatred against marriage

glossing- a type of personal interpretation

Tuesday, September 18 (10:50 class)
by Paige Carey

The wife of Bath’s Prologue:

We first started off the class by looking on page 298 and hearing what our editors had to say about the Wife of Bath. They describe this as; “the subtle layer of the text makes its final moral elusive”.  Usually these stories have great Christian morals, but this was not the case with the Wife of Bath.  There were two ways that people viewed the Wife of Bath’s prologue.

A moral warning against unbridled carnality

Admired for her independence, courage and vitality.

View 1: What is carnality? Lust, extreme physical desire. A warning to readers

View 2: People admire her for her actions and independence. She had great courage to behave outside of the culture norm.

Dr. Seaman gave us a thesis that we would talk about at the end of class it was: In the figure of the wife, Chaucer demonstrates some of the effects of marriage beginning primarily on a sexual and economic relationship.

We then went on to consider the genre of the text. At first we just think that the genre is not very clear, it’s simply a woman telling her story. Her prologue however participates in confessio or confession.

Religious confession: going to confession once a week and claiming your error and promising to be better

Literary confession: tell your own errors proudly, bragging about them

In the middle ages in many literary contexts, bad people confess their errors as skills–they talk about their own errors and claim them as good. The Wife of Bath is writing in her own argument and anecdotes. She works against authoritative writing of misogyny: anti-women and misogamy: anti-marriage. The Wife of Bath responds to this by using examples from the New and Old Testament, examples from St. Paul as well as a made up source. Chaucer created this fake source. One of the main Misogamy writers was Jerome; he was a Father of the Church. He wrote within the church promoting celibacy.

We talked about the Romance of the Rose, and how there was an older woman La Vieille. Lavieille was a whore; she was paid to have sex with me. We talked about how the Wife of Bath does this more subtly, but it still caused people to related the Wife of Baths prologue to the Romance of the Rose.

Before we went into detail of the Wife of Bath’s prologue we went to the general prologue. On page 244 starting from line 445 and ending on line 476 we have the description of the Wife of Bath. It was mainly her physical description, but we also found out she had been on three pilgrimages. This description also told us that she was a cloth maker, meaning that she made her own money. She was a businesswoman outside of the home. We also learn that she loved to seek attention, especially in church in line to give offerings she would get very upset if anyone went in front of her in line. She is very money oriented.

The Wife of Bath’s Prologue:

The first 200 lines she is defending marriages, both her own multiple marriages and marriage itself. The people that would be attacking marriages are men of the church who have taken an oath, which forbids them from getting married. They wrote stories about what horrible things women did to their husbands trying to justify celibacy. The Wife of Bath is defending all of their accusations of marriage. Her experience gives her authority to talk about marriage. Experience does give people authority in modern day life, however in the Middle Ages that was not the case. Knowledge and wisdom gave you authority. However she jumps straight in and defends marriage, using examples of scripture and in terms of how it has traditionally been interpreted. Then she challenges this and offers her own interpretation, based on the face that she has been married five times.

Line 26: men may divine up and down but I know I can interpret that text. She positions herself as an interpreter.

Line 66: men may counsel a women but counseling someone is not ordering them. If god commanded virginity then no one would be married.

Line 73: Paul dare not command anything that his master did not command. God is a bigger authority, you can’t just say and claim what you want. People twist text to suit their needs.

The influence of perspective: doesn’t depend upon if you’re a man or clergy. Everyone has their own perspective; this is challenging the idea of the middle Ages.

The middle section from about lines 200-500 describes her first three husbands. She had power in these marriages because she was a beautiful young woman, who married very old wealthy men for their money. She had ultimate control over them because they desired her and they were too old to do anything else.

Husband number four is the beginning of the transformation; he was slightly differently from the first three. She begins to lose her ultimate control over her husband when he cheats on her. To get even she makes him believe that she is also cheating on him but she is not actually. He dies while she is on pilgrimage.

Husband number five Jankyn is very different from the rest of them. The Wife of Bath is no longer young and beautiful, she is old and wealthy. Jankyn is a young poor man who wants the Wife of Baths money. The Wife of Bath now truly loves and desires Jankyn. Like her first three husbands desired her. Why does she love Jankyn? He dominates her; she has to earn it from him. What does it mean to live with Jankyn?

Line 659: She wouldn’t be corrected by him “I’m not taking that” she would say.

She then goes on to describe Jankyns book on line 685, “book of wicked wives” He reads this book her to every night. Describing all the horrible things women have done to their husbands. The Women of Bath was in pain and misery while she had to listen to these stories every night, until on line 788 where she rips three pages out of Jankyns book, which as a result causes them to get into a fight. On line 794- he leaps up like a crazy lion, which coincides with what she said on line 688, believe well it is impossible that clerks will speak good of wives. Tell me who painted the lion? The Women of Bath pretends to pass out, Jankyns first thought is to flee. He killed his wife he cannot stick around and as he is leaving she yells out you tried to kill me and then you were going to leave?

One line 800, he apologizes and changes his understanding.

Line 805 he says I will never hit you again, but forgive me I ask you. However the Wife of Bath does not she slaps him again, and says now I got my revenge. On Line 812 Jankyn gave the Wife of Bath the entire bridle, she is now in charge of everything. She can control the family wealth, giving the wealth back to her was a sign that he did not marry her for her wealth. He gives up his authority, and in return she became a good wife.

Back to the original thesis of the day:

In the figure of the wife, Chaucer demonstrates some of the effects of marriage beginning primarily on a sexual and economic relationship. This makes sense because all of her marriages had to do with money, we even see this in her fifth marriage with Jankyn when she gets her money back and regains her ultimate control.

The two ways of viewing the wife: coming from a modern day perspective we are able to see the points of view from both of the different views. We cant change it without reassuring it.

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