Doc Yoder's Notes
"The Wife of Bath: Prologue and Tale"
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (~1386-1400)The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
The Prologue:
1-168: Opening -- marriage vs chastity; experience vs auctoritee
169-198: Interlude -- the Pardoner responds to her arguments
199-834: the Wife's 5 husbands, 3 good, 2 bad
835-862: interruption: the Friar and the Summoner: the Friar complains about Wife's preamble, then he and the Summoner start bickering
- 203-457: husbands 1-3 and how she handled them
- 240-384: extended quotation of what she would say to her "good" older husbands
- 458-508: husband 4, a "reveler" (459)
- 509-833: husband 5 (Janekin)
- 509-635: How she met and married Janekin
- 591-592: she loses her place in her story
- 627-640: note her decision making and the terms of the marriage; was Janekin only after her money?
- 640-42: alludes to the fight between the wife and Janekin
- 643-671: examples of the wicked women he would tell her about
- 672-693: Wife says that now sheÕll start the full story of the fight
- 694-716: more examples lead to a digression on Male authorship & anti-woman clerks
- 717-720: back to the story ("I was beten for a book")
- 721-777: digression listing the wicked women in Janekin's book
- 778: back to narrative
- 779-793: digression listing Janekin's proverbs
- 794-816: the fight
- 817-833: they find happiness:
"Myn owene trewe wif
Do as thee lust the terme of al thy life;
Keep thyn honour, and keep eek myn estate,"
After that day we hadde nevere debate.
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. (825-831)The Tale:
863-67: in King Arthur's time
868-887: digression on the loss of elves and fairies due to the presence of friars
--She does say that women can travel safely now, apparently unlike King Arthur's day in which even one of his knights is a rapist
888-930: back to the story: the knight rapes a virgin, is condemned and then redeemed (conditionally) by the queen
931-954: catalogue of responses to the question: "What think it is that wommen most desiren"
955-988: digression on Ovid's tale of Midas's wife and women's inability to keep a secret
989-1028: back to the story: the knights is attracted by 24 dancing women, but they vanish, leaving him with the "foul[est] wight" any man could "devise" (1005); they make a deal; the old woman whispers something to him, but we don't know what she says
------ This whisper shifts the dynamics of the story a bit: as readers, we want to know what she told him, presumably what women want (right?). Like the Friar, we may be impatient to dispense with the digressions and get on with the story, but now we may be more interested in the answer than in the story, so the story itself is now the delaying mechanism, like the digressions, keeping from us from what we want to know.
1029-1114: back at court, the rapist/knight gives his answer (1043-1048), which no one will deny (1049-1051) the old woman calls in the deal, and she and knight wed privately(1052-1088) on the wedding night he wants nothing to do with her: "Thou art so lothly and so old also, / And thereto comen of so lowe a kinde" (1106-1107)
1115-1182: she lectures him on the true meaning of gentleness (esp. 1121-22, 1140ff., 1163-68, 1181-82)
1183-1212: she lectures him on the value of poverty
1213-1224: she lectures him on the value of age
1225-1270: She gives him a choice: he can take her as she is, old and w/ no trouble, or young and beautiful and he can take his chances. He chooses to let her choose: he seems to have learned the lesson of what women want. So he gets her both fair and good.
Topics to consider:
Compare the issues of control in marriage and control in story-telling.
His desires / expectations impose a false choice -- fair OR good, but NOT BOTH.
By trusting her, letting her be what she wants, he gets what he wants.
How do the dynamics of surrender actually seem to work out?
What are the key issues as expressed in the poem?
The answers to what women want:
Return to Doc Yoder's Literature Notes
What Janekin finally tells the Wife in her Prologue:
"Myn owene trewe wif
Do as thee lust the terme of al thy lif;
Keep thyn honour, and keep eek myn estat,"
After that day we hadde nevere debat.
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. (825-831)
What the rapist/knight reports back to the queen in the Tale:
"My lige lady, generally," quod he,
"Wommen desire to have sovereinetee
As wel over hir housbande as hir love,
And for to been in maistrye him above.
This is your most desir though ye me kille,
Dooth as you list: I am here at youre wille." (1043-1048)
What the rapist/knight/husband tells the old woman on their wedding night in the Tale:
"My lady and my love, and wif so dere,
I putte me in youre wise governaunce:
Cheseth youreself which may be most pleasaunce
And most honour to you and me also.
I do no fors the wheither of the two,
For as you liketh it suffiseth me."
"Thanne have I gete of you maistrye," quod she,
"Sin I may chese and governe as me lest?"
"Ye, certes, wif," quod he. "I holde it best."
"Kisse me," quod she. "We be no lenger wrothe.
For by my trouthe, I wol be to you bothe --
This is to sayn, ye, bothe fair and good." (1236-1247)
But the Wife also says:
"A thousand time arewe he gan hire kisse,
And she obeyed him in every thing
That mighte do him plesance or liking." (1260-1262)
"And Jesu Crist us sende
Housbondes meeke, yonge, and fresshe abedde --
And grace t'overbide hem that we wedde." (1264-1266)
Doc Yoder's Home