Tuesday, Oct. 18 Wife of Bath

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Tuesday, Oct. 18Wife of Baths Prologue and Tale
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Wife of Bath
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Her Story
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Who said this?

• 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 sell109       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 perfectly112       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 age114       In the actes and in fruyt of
  mariage.                In the acts and in fruit
  of marriage.

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G. L. Kitteredge on Wifes 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
  husbands. 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.

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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
• 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)

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Ways to analyze any text, applied to Wife of
Baths Tale Rape/ Loving Sex, Youth/ Age, Male/
Female, Obedience/ Control, etc.
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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.

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Pardoner
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Or, another way
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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?

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Imagery trace an image through the text

• Books
• 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

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Oppositional categories Who is caught in
between?

• Power Weakness
• Rape Love
• Books Experience / oral tales
• Age Youth
• Male Female
• Money Poverty
• Answers Questions
• Catholic Church Pagan practices

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Overlay onto an older story (or younger)

• Wife of Baths 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?

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Frames

• Connections between Wife of Baths 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

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Baroque art/ Frame
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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?

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Maps
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Metaphors

• Green Knights color and ability to survive
  beheading
• Green girdle
• Kisses
• Deer/ Boar/ Fox
• Pentangle
• Gold in Beowulf
• Bones held by Pardoner

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Mise en abyme
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Norman Rockwell doing it
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With mirrors
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Cameras photographing cameras
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What could you answer for the midterm?

• Who said this?
•     Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote     
              When April with its sweet-smelling
  showers2         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
  liquid4         Of which vertu engendred is the
  flour                 By which power the flower
  is created

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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.'

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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.

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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 Pardoners 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?