Wife of Bath Prologue

Well, I've never really done one of these blogs before, with all the 'thoughts' and stuff...so we'll see how this goes.

I read the intro and the prologue to Chaucer's Wife of Bath tale from The Canterbury Tales.  It is difficult to read the middle English, but I suppose that is just one of the challenges of the Brit. lit. course this semester.  It's almost like reading another language, but I'd have to say it is still English.

As I have heard (and somewhat remember from my AP brit lit/composition class in senior year of high school), the Wife of Bath tale is feministic in nature, and I am catching some hints of this in the beginning of this tale.  Even in the very first lines of "Alisoun's" tale, she portrays a feeling of freedom and liberation from the chains of marriage when she says "...to speke of wo that is in marriage."  This statement, I think, is foreshadowing her tale that she will tell to the pilgrims on the road to Canterbury.  Seeing that she has had five husbands, freedom from one or the other could also be implied here.

I like how the Wife of Bath explains the different types of women -- the 'virginitiee' and her characteristics (naiivete [spelling!]), a bigamist,  etc, and how she compares and contrasts herself to them.

The interruption by The Pardoner in lines 163 - makes this feel more like a story, and not just an extensive poem that never seems to end.  It gives the prologue a flipside of another opinion, which is so awesome that Chaucer added it in; gives the story a quirky, tangible feeling.

The references to other books, scholars, and poems adds a deep understanding of where Chaucer attained the characters and plot lines.  Some examples are The Bible, Ptolemy's Almagest, Roma de la Rose.

I'll come back another time for some more Wife of Bath bloggieness.

~suzanne