THIS IS ANOTHER ESSAY from Uni, written in a byegone age, that goes a bit into the weeds and might not appeal to most people, but I thought it had a couple of interesting points. And it’s probably better to lightly explore one of the great classics of English Literature than not to try at all. It can’t hurt, any way.
The Canterbury Tales was composed over a period of several years around 1380 or so, which is “whilom” ago, to be sure. Chaucer based his work in part on The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, who wrote about a group of people sheltering in an Italian villa while the Black Death raged in the countryside around them. To pass the time they tell each other stories over a period of ten days, hence the title “Decameron” (“ten days”). Boccaccio finished it in 1353, only a few years after plague had ravaged Europe.
IIRC, my prof once suggested that if Chaucer had written about Arthurian legends and composed a similar work based on the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (which were being compiled at the time, especially in France), instead of a tale about a group of pilgrims journeying to Canterbury, then he—and not Shakespeare—would have been considered the greatest writer in the English language.
But don’t feel too sorry for poor Geoffrey; he’s a fairly safe bet for the Top Five, and that’s nothing to sneeze at! (Especially in these Covid times we’re living in.)
[Don't freak out if you can't read any of the text from CT: it's in Middle English. I've incl. links to both tales which come with an easy-to-read translation. Prof's comments in red.
Blameth nat me if that ye chese amys!]
Cheers, Jake.
Narrative Technique in “The Shipman’s Tale” and “The Prioress’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
One of the major concerns Chaucer seems to be dealing with in “The Shipman’s Tale” is that of acquaintanceship, of knowing another person and of having a relationship. In this tale, Chaucer examines the values by which friendships are made, kinships established, and relationships maintained. Reflecting on the tale as a unit within the larger work, the question of its lack of connection to the preceding “Pardoner’s Tale” can perhaps be seen as a function of its theme. Chaucer examines, throughout the “Shipman’s Tale”, the idea that the various pledges made by the characters to each other, supposedly binding and permanent, are in fact anything but “eterne alliaunce[s]” (l. 40), and he portrays their shifting alliances over time. We are shown how their initial pledges, for example, are either inappropriate to begin with or else are not kept in the end.
By not introducing his “Shipman’s Tale” with a prologue and thereby linking it directly with the “Pardoner’s Tale”, Chaucer is asking us to examine the purpose of introductions. We reflect on the function of introductions in the other tales and on how the “Shipman’s Tale” functions without one. He seems to suggest that introductions are like the pledges and promises, oaths and agreements made by the characters of his tale and are subject to change. Introductions only initiate relationships: they do not maintain them. One tale is ‘introduced’ to another by either a prologue or some other connective passage but the relationship of one tale to the next develops with the telling of the tale. Thus, the “Shipman’s Tale” has no relationship with the “Pardoner’s Tale” preceding it, but by the end of the tale, by the process of telling the tale, firm links are established between the “Shipman’s Tale” and the following “Prioress’s Tale”. Thus, Chaucer’s first narrative technique for the telling of the “Shipman’s Tale” is in his shaping of the tale itself.
Chaucer’s use of narrative voice, as well, acts as a function of his theme. He introduces his tale with a third person narrative speaker: “A marchant whilom dwelled at Seint-Denys,” (l. 1). He then provides a complaint of husbands about their wives that, together with the title, suggests the male persona of the Shipman, speaking though the first person voice, is somewhat indistinct. He then follows this complaint with an obvious first-person narrative but one suggesting the speaker is, in fact female:
“He moot us clothe, and he moot us arraye,
Al for his woene worshipe richely,
In which we daunce jolily.” (l. 12-14)
The remainder of the tale is told from the first-person perspective of the Shipman. His narrative presence remains throughout the tale and is seen in such passages as: “Who was so welcome as my lord daun* John, / Oure deere cosyn, ful curteisye?” (l. 68-69) and “That my lord daun John was come agayn.” (l. 312). Here, the narrator uses words similar in sentiment to words the wife and marchant use in the tale when they refer to the monk. The purpose of such a technique is to suggest there is an interplay between the narrator and the story. The tale is not merely a static record of events occurring “whilom” [“long ago”], that the narrator now repeats to his listeners. Instead, the tale is seen to be, in a sense, ‘interpreted’ by the narrator. His commentary on the tale, in turn, becomes part of the tale, itself. Thus, the tale is not merely the finished product, as suggested by the conventional folk tale introduction (“Whilom”) by which we are introduced to the tale, but rather, the tale is seen as something that is open to change. A major example of such change occurs when the marchant asks, “‘Quy la?’” (l. 214), as his wife knocks on his counting house door. We are pulled right out of the narrative frame entirely, for there was no prior suggestion that the Shipman was translating a particular tale from any French text, nor quoting any French authority. Except for French place names and the names of Saints, the initial expectation on the part of the reader, the ‘pledge’ made by the narrator at the beginning of the tale is that the story will be told in English as if it were being told in French. This is how the reader expects the tale to unfold. In other words, no distinction is to be made between English and French. By reporting dialogue in French, the Shipman appears to be violating the narrative principle ‘agreed upon’ at the start of the tale. It serves no purpose, in the telling of his tale, for the Shipman to “quote” the marchant in French.
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| Geoffery Chaucer |
As well, the narrator acts to provide action in the tale by leaving his description of one character and moving on to describe the next. In terms of narrative structure, the tale is designed in passages that alternate between the marchant and the monk, with the middle section of the tale alternating between passages that contain the monk and the wife with those containing the marchant and his wife.
We have seen this technique before in other tales, where the one character is presumed to continue to act, while the narrator moves on to describe the actions of another. For example, the marchant is presumed to go about his business in Brugges and the narrator states: “He let hys lyf, and there I let hym dwelle.” (l. 306). The narrator goes on to describe the fulfillment of the pledge made earlier between the monk and the marchant’s wife at Seint-Denys.
The narrator also provides direction as to character interpretation by, for example, his mimicry of the pious exclamation of the marchant as he reports his [the marchant’s] conversation with the monk in Paris. The narrator reports but does not quote the marchant, again providing the interpretative element to his narration I have mentioned. The Shipman’s report mimics or echoes the words of the marchant and, again, they express a certain amount of ridicule toward him. I should add, the fact that the characters of his tale have no proper names, including daun John, which is a generic reference for a cleric (Riverside. Explanatory Notes, 912), provides another folk tale ‘layering’ to the tale, along with the use of “Whilom” I’ve discussed earlier. As I have suggested, the Shipman is seen to ‘interact’ with his tale and thus changes it, in this case by providing his own perspective on the characters of his tale which, by folk tale convention, are assumed to be constant.
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| Canterbury Cathedral |
What was initially pledged (or introduced, agreed upon, vowed, or thought of as a given) is at best only partially true, and it is certainly subject to change. Husbands must pay for their wives—because their wives cannot pay for themselves. As the “Wif” of Bathe makes clear in her tale, it is men who have the money. In “The Shipman’s Tale”, Chaucer again calls our attention to the imbalance of power that exists between men and women. It is men who have the money, and it is men who also have at their discretion the ability to “array” their wives for display alongside their other properties. As an aside, the fact that Chaucer has his “female’ narrator use a first-person voice in this passage is, I feel, to direct our sympathies toward the wife. At the end of the tale, the marchant’s wife (in the tale as told by our narrator, the Shipman), has both cuckolded her husband and taken his money, but we are more apt to be sympathetic with her because of our understanding of the truer meaning of the initial marriage pledge and because of the direct appeal of the narrative voice.
Repetition is also used in “The Shipman’s Tale” to reinforce the idea that pledge-making is a static process. The word, “Whilom” which begins the tale, suggests a timeless, unchanging setting. The sense is that the marchant has always lived at Seint-Denys and will always live there and that the monk has always known the marchant as he knows him now. The monk is apparently always welcome; they will always be friends, and so on. Chaucer even adds a punning reference when he suggests the marchant went to Brugges “alle wise” (l. 61). He suggests that the marchant went “in all manner of ways” (travel venues) to Brugges, with the pun being that while he went “all ways” he was not “all wise” (as either a cuckold or a pledge maker). This technique aptly draws our attention to changes that occur in the characters’ relationships following the various pledges they make to each other. “Always” is definitely not always the case.
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Chaucer also embeds references in his narrative that provide for character interpretation and theme presentation. In the tale, characters swear oaths to the Saints and to God that are, of course, pledges. In a sense, these oaths initiate “relationships” between the characters and God and the Saints in the same manner as other pledges initiate relationships between the characters themselves. For example, the monk swears by Saint James that he has repaid his debt and given the money to the marchant’s wife. Saint James was known as a person of charity and as an alms giver. Since the monk is, in fact, a thief, and swearing by Saint James in such a fashion is seen by the reader as a false pledge. Consequently, he has no true “relationship” with the saint. The marchant, by not examining the true nature of the marriage pledge with his wife (that it is based on inequality), and assuming that it is based only on the public obligation all husbands are supposed to owe their wives, has failed to appreciate the more important private debt he owes her. The wife’s public indebtedness to her husband is inverted, by the tale’s end, with the husband “owning up” to the real debt he owes her. The celebratory tone of the scene suggests that the private marriage debt husbands owe their wives is, in fact, the more important one. Chaucer has shown how the initial pledge of the marriage changes over the course of the tale. Thematically, he is saying that pledges only introduce relationships and that they must change over time. In this case, the change is seen to be for the better. There is a sense of mutuality and companionship that ends the tale on a most optimistic note.
A final comment on Chaucer’s technique of embedding: At one point, the marchant’s wife swears to God, asking him to punish her “‘As foul as evere had Genylon of France.’” (l. 194). The interesting point here is that within his tale, Chaucer has embedded a relationship between one fictional character and another—from a completely different work—but more subtly than is first thought. The knight, Genylon, is the betrayer of Roland, who is the hero of the French epic poem, The Song of Roland. The connection to the marchant’s wife lies with “Roland”, specifically with Roland’s sword. In the hilt of Roland’s great sword, “Durendal”, there are relics: a lock of hair from Saint Denys! When the marchant’s wife invokes Genylon’s name, she is initiating a relationship that, in a sense, already exists. She has previously sworn by both Mary and Saint Peter, and she, of course, lives in Saint-Denys. (Saint Denys is the patron saint of France.) Her pledge acts to both reinforce and deepen the already existing relationship. Thematically, this once again suggests that pledges are only part of a relationship and they should never become their raison d’être.
A second point concerning her Prologue is the fact that Chaucer, as narrator, does not quote her words directly but provides his own rehearsal of them. (I should like to mention that in “The Shipman’s Tale”, I have used the term “narrator” or “narrative voice” to indicate the Shipman; here in this tale, “narrator” will be used to refer only to Chaucer as the narrator of The Canterbury Tales.) Compared to “Shipman’s”, this tale has a more obvious narrator presence. In both the prologue and in the tale itself, the narrator makes a point of telling us that he is not quoting the Prioress directly: “—quod she—” (l. 454 and l. 581). The Riverside Explanatory Notes suggest this is a technique the narrator uses to distance himself from being identified with the Prioress’s rather insistent moralizing. I think it also acts to emphasize the distance the Prioress’s rhetoric and style take her from her audience. Her voice, beginning with her Prologue’s apostrophe, is insistent throughout, and when the narrator enters her dialogue, it is as if to say, “This is all too much”. And it is.
I have mentioned the use of apostrophe and its distancing effect. I suggest that its use by the Prioress is part of her ‘rhetorical armoury’. She uses prayer and exclamations to God or Mary for conveying to her listeners the importance of her tale. Essentially, she hopes to have her listeners experience the ecstasy of the vision she implies she has. Her prayers suggest a high spiritual state but, I feel, her control of language, her use of Latinate words, her citing of authorities (Saints Nicholas and John, and the bible, for example) show her to be in control of herself, and as such, she is seen to tell her tale with a hidden agenda: she aims to convert her listeners. Chaucer provides the Prioress with her rhetorical weapons that emphasize what I feel is his central concern in the tale, namely that prayers or miracles or moments of revelation are a personal matter and that no one can (or should) try to convince you that their moment should be your moment. [This is anachronistic: the idea of religion as 'personal' results from the separating of church and state whose roots can be found in the 'conscience' with the Reformation. So, while I like your point about our response to the 'miracle', this is not the right way to explain it.] We, too, “stand” in awkward silence, like the pilgrims at the end of the Prioress’s tale, and say, “Yes, well and good, but so what?”
In her Prologue, the Prioress calls her tale her “song” (l. 487). The irony here is that song, like a prayer, is a personal expression, and unless it is shared communally, as with a chorus, each person’s song remains their own. Yes, you can listen to someone sing, but unless you accompany the singer (as in the antiphonal hymns practiced in the boy’s school), your only recourse is to sing your own song. The Canterbury group, standing around at the end of the Prioress’s tale, is anything but an accompanying choir.
Chaucer provides in his narrative a clear example of this difficulty of create a shared experience when the older classmate addresses the little boy:
“‘this song, I have herd seye
was maked of our blissful lady free,
Hire to salve, and ekk to preye’” (l. 531-33)
In other words, the older classmate tells the boy he has heard the song and that it is about greeting and praying to Mary to ask for her blessing. He goes on to suggest that he himself has not experienced Mary’s presence, in a spiritual sense, as has the boy, and therefore the song, for him, is just a song, and he “kan namoore expounde in this mateere.” (l. 536). He can’t say anything else about it. For the reader, as well, the Prioress’s “song” is just a song.
I find the tale’s narrative structure deliberately simplistic: A Christian boy is living in a realistic, though unnamed, foreign country, in roughly contemporary times (not “whilom” days). His mother is a widow who raises him to love Mary. The boy sings to the Holy Mother on his daily walks through the Jewish ghetto. Tempted by the devil, the Jews murder him. A miracle occurs and then the boy finally dies. With such a simple plot, Chaucer can emphasize the rhetorical practices of the Prioress, for example her apostrophes, her use of repetition, her emphasis on details, and her admonitions against Jews and sinners in general.
A final point
on Chaucer’s use of embedding, which is a technique he uses so well in
“The Shipman’s Tale”. The “greyn” (l. 664), embedded, as it were, on the boy’s
tongue is, in the Riverside Explanatory Notes, suggested to be an “enigmatic
symbol”, representative of miracles of “unknown quantities”. In addition, I
feel the “greyn” (seed) acts as a kind of ‘key’, similar in purpose to the
magical keys found in folk tales. In folk tales, there always seems to be the
magic word or powder or sword or what have you that enables the hero to enter
the realm of magic and be empowered by it. There is a sense that the heroes of
folk tales are ‘real’ (Hansel and Gretel, Aladdin etc.), that they come from a ‘real’
world (supposedly our own), and then enter a magical one. However, I feel in
this tale that the hero (the boy) is, in a sense, unreal—both because he seems to be more of a rhetorical ‘tool’ or ‘weapon’
of the Prioress and, more importantly, because of his status: he is neither
dead nor alive. He is beyond the pale of human understanding. He is miraculous.
The question the reader asks is this: What purpose does the “greyn” serve? I
feel it acts to ‘open a door’ like keys do in magical folk tales, but in the opposite direction. Instead
of entering a realm of magic with the “greyn”, the boy leaves it. He leaves his
miraculous state of being neither living nor dead and returns to the normal
world where he dies and is silent. The miracle is at an end. This is the
critical point Chaucer makes. Miracles, he says, must end. What would happen if
the boy just kept on singing? Presumably, at some point, he would become a
nuisance, disturbing the neighbours, causing noise pollution etc. [But telling of miraculous events goes on and on.] I
feel that Chaucer is saying that miracles (or the experience of the
transcendent; seeing the face of God and so on) must have their contexts to be
relevant. One must experience the miraculous, not merely be told about
it.  |
| St. Hugh of Lincoln |
As I’ve suggested, Chaucer is saying that to tell a tale about the miraculous is fine, only it’s absurd to expect a response from the listeners (or the reader), on the same level as if they had experienced the miracle first-hand. The tale is therefore one of rhetorical failure and, at the end, of failed communication. Thus, the Prioress fails to ‘introduce’ her tale to her listeners. She fails to establish any relationship with them. Like her apostrophe, her tale addresses only those who are [absent.] ++ Here, at a textual aponia? / gap? I must speculate...]
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Works Cited
Chaucer Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. in The Riverside Chaucer. Third ed. Ed. L.D. Benson. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. 2 vols. NY: Oxford University Press, 1971.
A Glossary of Literary Terms 5th Edition, M.H. Abrams, Ed. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Toronto,1988.
* lord; or monk or clerk.
** The “Hooste” (“host”)
is the narrator of The Canterbury Tales who calls upon the various pilgrims
to each tell a tale as they journey to the shrine at Canterbury. (I believe he is named as "Chaucer" at some point, a humorous injection of the author into his narrative.)
+ An apostrophe is “a direct and explicit address either to an absent person or to an abstract or inanimate entity. Often the effect is either of high formality or else of a sudden emotional impetus.” (Glossary)
++Note, I ended the original essay with the word “absent”. As I was typing it up on my (old school) word-processor I was nearing the end and realized there would be just a handful of words left that would configure to the top of the final page. So, I reworded the last section to have only one word, “absent”, on the last page. (It seemed to suit the essay's final sentence and thought. And it was a bit playful. I think Prof L. found it amusing, as per his final comment and grade, below. (He initially thought I had left off my conclusion in mid-sentence.)
PROF COMMENTS: How perfect--the missing word was “absent”! A very fine essay, marred by a few execrable errors--Hence A- and not a very definite minus.
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I include the following essay written by a classmate for the same Chaucer course, as above, that I took during the Middle Ages. It’s mostly as she wrote it, and the prof’s comments are in red. I had photo-copied it because she rec’d an “A” grade and I wanted to see what kind of work you had to do to get one from Prof. L. He was a knowledgeable, no-nonsense prof, probably in his late 30s, somewhat grumpy and off-putting. He was also someone with zero patience for lame questions, as I found out! I blush still, all these years later, for asking that boner in class one time!
He was old-school British, who read the “Tales” to the class in Middle English, as well as passages from Chaucer’s “Trolius and Cressida” poem. He didn’t explain a lot or give background information or touch on any history, IIRC. We were expected to keep up, nevertheless. It was a difficult course, and I enjoyed the challenge, even if I didn’t do as well as I had in my other classes.
Not everyone felt the same: One time an administrator came to sit in class to observe Prof. L’s lecture. (I think some snowflake had complained about his teaching style.)
We had been reviewing a passage in “T&C” having to do with the devil. After the administrator left, scowling heavily for having wasted his time, I joked that the admin must have been one of those demons-in-disguise Satan sends into the world to corrupt us. My comment caught Prof L., by surprise and after a moment he said, almost smiling, “perhaps”. He was an interesting, intelligent guy.
Fun times,
Jake
Comparison of the Prioress and the Wife of Bath
O. C. [student writer]
Eng 300Y
Nov, 30, 1992
Prof. L.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a collection of tales told by a group of pilgrims who journey together to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. Chaucer, himself, serves as the narrator of the tales, recounting the pilgrims’ conversations and their stories. Chaucer’s role as narrator is to observe and record all that he sees and hears, and he begins by describing each of the pilgrims in the General Prologue. I will be analyzing and comparison the Prioress and the Wife of Bath for the simple reason that they are the only two major female pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales and they appear to be complete contrasts to one another. Even though they appear to be opposites, Chaucer describes both quite favourably.
Chaucer introduces each of the pilgrims by occupation. By means of her title, we discover that the nun is a prioress, a high-ranking officer of the church. A prioress is ranked just below an abbess, the female superior of a convent (Websters, p.2) This give the Prioress a high status in her nunnery. The Wife of Bath, on the other hand, has no direct occupation, unless you believe, as Jill Mann does, that cloth-making is her work (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 818) Cloth-making was a very common trade at that time and there is nothing in her presentation to indicate that her trade led to any honourable position in society. One may, after taking into account the Wife of Bath has been married five times, simply see her as a housewife.
Most of the pilgrims in the General Prologue are identified solely by occupation and their names are not known to the reader until their tales are told. The Wife of Bath is such a character.
In the Prologue she is addressed as Wife, which is archaically defined as “woman” (Webster’s p. 1632). Her gender is her name. The Prioress, on the other hand, is titled Madame Eglentyne. Madame is the conventional term of respect used when speaking about a woman of position (Webster’s p. 860). This emphasises the Prioress’ high status. “Eglentyne” is the English Eglantine which is defined as a sweetbrier. A “sweetbrier” is a wild rose or dog rose. The word “wild’ connotes a sense of un-cultivation, a contrast to the Prioress’ refined appearance. The “dog rose” definition ties in neatly with the Prioress’s connection with small hounds. The sweetbrier has a tall stem with prickles and bristles and small, pink flowers (Webster’s p 1437). The bristles remind the reader that a rose has thorns [Who needs reminding? Why is a rose always) or still) the symbol for love?] regardless of its beauty. The colour pink is usually associated with femininity, but the word has many other meanings as well. It is also defined as the highest form or degree and the highest type or example of excellence (Websters, p. 1094). This is another sign of the Prioress’ position and of her overall description. If the reader takes pink to mean to adorn or ornament (as Webster’s also defines it), then this can be connected to the Prioress’ beads and brooch. The rose has been conventionally used in romances and the name Eglentyne has been used in several romance novels (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 804).
Chaucer’s depiction of the Prioress’ features is that of a popular medieval romantic beauty (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 805). She has a well-formed nose, a small mouth and a wide forehead. The prioress’ lips are soft and red. Theis is a sensual image. The softness speaks of smoothness and an easy yielding to touch (Webster’s, p. 1352). The colour red signifies passion and love (Webster’s, p. 1201) The Prioress has a feminine, delicate and beautiful face.
The Wife of Bath, on the other hand, has a robust face. It is described as bold, fair and red. To be bold-faced means to be brazen, and boldness is defined as courageous, daring, forward, immodest, flashy and conspicuous (Webster’s, p. 166). This fits the Wife of Baths’ character perfectly. The fact that she travels to pilgrimages the world over as an unaccompanied married woman seems to be a bold thing to do. She uses these pilgrimages as social excursions and is welcoming a sixth husband as she travels to Canterbury (Wife of Bath Prologue, 45). The Wife of Bath’s gap-teeth are also a sign of boldness (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 819)
By boasting to Chaucer that her weaving is better than that found at Ypres and Ghent, renowned cloth-making centers, the Wife of Bath demonstrates her immodesty. He red hue is further proof of her immodesty and also indicates a talkative nature (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 819). We are told by Chaucer tha the Wife of Bath could “chatter” (General Prologue, 474). Chatter, however, is defined as idle and foolish talk (Webster’s p. 250), which lessens the importance of anything she speaks. [?]
A bold, red face need not denote unattractiveness however, for the Wife of Bath is also described as being fair. To be “fair” means to be pleasing in appearance and fee from blemishes and imperfections (Webster’s, p. 511). Nevertheless, fair is also defined as being seemingly good but not really so (ibid.). There is ambiguity to the Wife of Bath even though she is presented as being very conspicuous.
The Wife of Bath’s dress is another sign of her boldness. We are told that her head kerchiefs weigh ten pounds and are made of a fine texture. She wears scarlet lace hose. Scarlet is a bright, obvious red and it is also a kind of cloth which is usually red, rich and heavy (Webster’s, p. 1272). This insinuates that the wife of Bath is a woman of money. The stockings are closely laced. Chaucer describes them as being “full streite yteyd” (general Prologue, 457). Strait and tied mean to be confined (Webster’s, p. 1404, 1483). The wife of Bath most probably felt confined in her marriages and her pilgrimages were presumably a way of escaping the restrictions imposed on her by her husbands. A strait is also a position of difficulty, and to lace means to attack verbally or physically (Webster’s, p. 799). [But did it in 1400?]
In her prologue, the Wife of Bath speaks of her cruel behaviour toward her husbands. She worked them hard and maliciously chided them. She accused her fourth husband of cheating and tortured him. she refused to obey her fifth husband and ripped some pages out of his favourite book, for which she received a beating to her head. This is the reason why the Wife of Bath is somewhat deaf. Her injury is befitting because to be deaf is to refuse to listen (Webster’s, p. 731). The Wife of Bath became deaf because she refused to listen to her husband recite any more stories of wicked wives. Chaucer describes her deafness as “scathe”. Scathe is defined in the footnotes as a pity, but it also means to harm (Webster’s, p. 1275). This is a wonderful pun.
Taking into account what we learn in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue, the reader will find more fighting imagery in her dress. We are told, for instance, that the Wife of Bath is wearing a bat as broad as a “buckler” or a “targe” (General Prologue, 471). Both a buckler and a targe are round shields used for protective, defensive measures (Webster’s, p. 193, 1454). To be a target is to be an object of abuse (Webster’s p. 1454). We are also told that the Wife of Bath has large hips and while large hips are conventionally thought to be a sign of good childbearing (the Wife of Bath has no children), hip is also defined archaically as being at a disadvantage (Webster’s. p. 672). Hip also means to attack unmercifully (ibid). [So?]
The Wife of Bath is wearing sharp spurs because she is riding a horse, but spurs are also worn by gamecocks when they are cockfighting (Webster’s, p. 1378). A gamecock is a rooster of a fighting breed or one that is trained to fight (Webster’s, p.582). it is interesting to note that the rooster is a male and that the Wife of Bath is presented somewhat masculinely. Traditional, feminine women would most likely not be as independent or experienced as she.
Both the Wife of Bath and the Prioress are wearing wimples. A wimple is a headcloth folded under the chin, formally worn outdoors (Webster’s, p. 1685). It is a head covering worn by nuns as well, which explains why the Prioress is wearing one. The Wife of Bath wears a large, conspicuous wimple, while the Prioress’ wimple is fashionably pleated and worn very properly. The Wife of Bath is dressed flamboyantly, whereas the Prioress is more refined. Her jewellery, however, may be considered somewhat flashy.
The Prioress is wearing a coral rosary and a good brooch. The brooch would be showy in itself because nuns were not allowed to wear brooches at that time (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 805). The coral rosary has large, green gauds. A gaud is a bead, usually the eleventh one, which indicates that the Lord’s Prayer should be said (Webster’s, p.587). A gaud is also defined as a showy ornament and to be gaudy means to be flashy and garish (ibid). The Prioress likes pretty, material things and it is only fitting that she should swear an oath to St. Loy (St. Eligius), a skillsman in working precious metals who is know for his beauty (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 804).
The Prioress’ jewellery has an ambiguously sexual overture to it. Coral was traditionally thought to be a love charm (Riverside Explanatory Notes, 805). The Prioress’ own charm is ambiguous in tis meaning as well. The brooch is inscribed with “love conquers all”, which could be applied to either divine or earthly love (General Prologue, 162).
The Prioress’ sexuality, in general, is presented in a subtle way. As was previously explained, her appearance is described in the traditional romantic fashion. Chaucer also says that her smiling was simple and coy. While coy is taken to mean quite [quiet?] (presumingly [?] shy and modest as well), it also denotes a coquettishness. The Prioress’ table manners are those used by the poet Ovid, advising women on how to attract men (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p.804). Having good manners and social conduct was the Prioress’ greatest desire. Chaucer uses the word lest, which is akin to the word lust. Both words denote pleasure but lust speaks of sexual desire. [Not then]
The Wife of Bath’s sexuality, on the other hand, is more straightforward. First and foremost is the fact that she had five husbands. In her prologue, she tells the pilgrims that she will give her sexuality freely in marriage and expects the same from her husband (Wife of Bath Prologue, 149-157). Chaucer also insinuates that the Wife of Bath had some lovers in her youth but will not elaborate (General Prologue, 460-62). Chaucer does tell us, however, that she does know remedies for love-sickness and games of love (General Prologue, 475-76). The “Olde Daunce” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 819).
The Wife of Bath is also sexual in her appearance. Gap-teeth are believed to indicate a sexual nature. They also signify a faithless nature (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 819), and although she was never adulterous, the Wife of Bath did flirt with her fifth husband while still married to her fourth and led him to believe that she was cheating on him (see Wife of Bath Prologue). The Wife of Bath’s spurs may also be viewed sexually in that spurs are use to prick, incite or urge on (Webster’s, p. 1378). The Wife of Bath is certainly seen as sexually aggressive in her prologue.
The Wife of Bath is aggressive in other aspects of life as well. Chaucer tells us that she insists on always being the first at the offering in church (General Prologue, 450). Worshipers wee to go to the alter in order of rank (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 804), and if the Wife of Bath was not first, she was all out of charity (meaning she was upset). The offering is given in worship as a gift and so one must, by definition, be charitable. Chaucer is punning wonderfully on the word and image.
The Prioress is also seen as being charitable, but her charity and mercy are directed towards animals and not people. The prioress weeps for dead or injured mice and feeds her dogs roasted flesh, milk and wastel-bread. Roasted meat and waster-bread were both very expensive at the time and the Benedictine rule did not allow meat to be eaten except for the ill (Riverside Explanatory Notes, p. 805). The mouse, ironically, is seen as a substitute for human suffering (ibid). The giving of good [?] ties in with the Prioress’ connection to the divine service. The service is the liturgy, which is the giving of Holy Communion (the partaking of the Lord’s Supper) (Webster’s, p. 838). The eating imagery also ties in with the Prioress’ table manners, which she tries very hard to imitate in the manner of the royal court (General Prologue, lines139-140)
The Prioress is presented as a pretty
woman who cares very much about appearances. Her table manners, as well as her
dress and actions are superficial. Chaucer admires the Prioress, but he admires
her for the wrong things. [?] The Prioress’
simple presentation implies more than what is actually said. The Wife of Bath,
on the other had, is presented more consistently. She doesn’t try to be what
she is not and is very hopest [ful] in
her portrayal. It is in this way that she is most contradictory to [contrasts most with] the Prioress.
PROF COMMENTS: Clear, sensitive, well-written and very good.
Grade A+
[Not to sound like 'sour grapes', but I found her essay rather boring to read. While making a number of good observations and 'ticking several boxes' , it just didn't hold my attention. And I hate her because she got an "A+"!]
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