Wife of Bath Quotes

Good afternoon, classmates. After gathering a small set of quotes for my final paper, I felt like it'd be polite to share a select few with all you who are studying for the final. So without further ado, I present to you the best of the Wife of Bath:

On Solomon and his wives:

“Sholde lete fader and mooder and take to me.

But of no nombre mencion made he,

Of bigamy, or of octogamye;

Why sholde men thane speke of it vileynye?”

Lo, here the wise kyng, daun Salomon;

I trowe he hadde wyves mo than oon.

As wolde God it leveful were unto me

To be refresshed half so ofte as he!

Which yifte of God hadde he for alle his wyvys!

No man hath swich that in this world alyve is.

God woot, this noble kyng, as to my wit,

The firste nyght had many a myrie fit

Wit ech of hem, so wel was hym on lyve.

Yblessed be God that I have wedded five!” (31-44)

On Genitals:

“Glose whoso wole, and seye bothe up and dou

That they were maked for purgacioun

Of urine, and our bothe thynges smale

Were eek to knowe a female from a male,

And for noon oother cause – say ye no?” (119-123).

On controling her husbands:

“By sleighte, or force, or by sm maner thyng,

As by continueel murmur or grucchyng.

Namely abedde hadden they meschaunce:

There wolde I chide and do hem no plesaunce;

I wolde no lenger in the bed abyde,

If that I felte his arm over my side,

Til he had maad his raunson unto me;

Thanne wolde I suffer hym do his nycetee” (405-412).

On Jankyn:

“And ever shall, until my dying day.

But in our bed he was so fresh and gay,

And therewithal he could so impose,

What time he wanted use of my belle chose,

That though he’d beaten me on every bone,

He could re-win my love, and that full soon” (497-502)

“After that day we hadden never debaat,

God helpe me so, I was to hym as kynde

As any wyf from Denmark unto Ynde,

And also trewe, and so he was to me” (822-825).

The Ending of her Tale:

“A thousand tyme a-rewe he gan hire kisse,

And she obeyed hym in every thing

That mighte doon hym plesance or liking.

And thus they lyve unto hir lyves ende

In parfit joy; and Jhesu Christ us sende

Housbondes meeke, yonge, and fresh abedde,

And grace t’overbyde hem that we wedde;

And eek I praye Jhesue shorte hir lyves

That noght wol be governed by hir wyves” (1254-1262).

I hope all this helps. Good luck tomorrow.

Paper Topic Also

I ended up exploring the insecurities of the Wife of Bath and how her conceptions of sovereignty, religion and sexuality all played into that. The most difficult part about writing about the Wife of Bath, in my opinion, is that she is ripe with inconsistencies. Scholars have interpreted her in so many different ways that it was a challenge to firmly plant my feet in an overall stance regarding my beliefs about the Wife of Bath. Later this weekend, once I'm recovered from 17 pages of Chaucer writing, I'll post some quotes that I think will be beneficial to all those who are taking the exam.

Paper Topic

Hey Jason...I am doing my paper on the Pardoner and the notions of sympathy, revulsion, terminality (meaning the state of being a body which is terminal, not reproductive) and homosexuality. I am trying to blend the scholarship I've read to get a clean picture, however vague, of the Pardoner and why the description of his body - and questionable sexual disposition - fits well with his admission of his deceitful practices and his tale of death, essentially a tale of what it means to be a terminal body.

SO far that's the best I can do to describe this paper.

Paper Topics

I would assume everyone has already at least started their paper, and a few of the more ambitious among us may have even finished it already. Since part of the stated purpose for this blog is to encourage discussion, I thought it might be helpful to post our paper topics here in case any of us are doing parallel research so we can compare notes, help each other out, or maybe even spark ideas for those that haven't started yet or for any undergrads who actually read this thing.
For mine I am covering the religious and religously affiliated characters in the tales.
My thesis is:
The Canterbury Tales’ multiple religious characters, from the tale tellers themselves to characters in their narratives, display a wide range of attributes but share a common theme of a clergy becoming increasingly self-involved and over-indulgent towards the end of the Ricardian era.
In my paper I am hoping to explore how the attitudes of the nobility and their hangers-on (like Chaucer) had begun to shift away from unquestioning loyalty to the traditional Catholic church. I think some of the attitudes and themes Chaucer expresses in the tales are subservisive at worst and "constructively critical" at best against the church and clerical figures.
On a related note, I will not at all be surprised if I'm the only one that's still checking the blog, let alone posting his paper topic.

Preachy Chaucer

Frankly I think it's pretty funny that the Canterbury Tales doesn't end with a tale, but instead a sermon about penitence. It was probably a good thing that the entire reading of Parson's Tale since the structure stayed the same the whole time, and there wasn't much different between the tale itself and a Medieval Sunday mass.

Chaucer's intentions with this piece were, as always, a bit unclear. Maybe G.C. wanted the reader to walk away remembering to live a sin-free life. Maybe he wanted to establish himself as a religious man and give props to Jesus for the completion of the tales. It can't be for certain, but what Chaucer does accomplish with this tale is completing small anthology of the various types of tale-styles. Looking back through the Canterbury Tales, we definitely read through a gauntlet of genres (the hag tale, the martyr tale, etc.) and the last horizon for Chaucer needed to explore at the end of the Canterbury Tales was the full-blown sermon. Obviously Chaucer had further intentions with his religious dialogue at the end of this piece, but at least he completed the genre set.

The Rejoysynge of the Devel

The word “devel” and its derivatives pop up repeatedly in the Parson’s Tale. It is not only a frequently used word in the tale, but probably the most frequently used noun in all the tales based purely on its repeated usage in the Parson’s Tale.
I thought it might be helpful to explore the medieval concept of Satan to provide a fuller context to its usage in this tale. And if my previous posts haven’t been obvious enough, I’m all about context.
Since Satan’s physical appearance is never discussed in the Bible, depictions of the devil and his characteristics have been the subject of considerable improvisation over time. During the Middle Ages, depictions of Satan were usually based on pagan traditions of horned gods such as Pan and Dionysus. In this way, the devil both embodied evil and chaos while avoiding being so sinister as to overshadow the medieval concept of “fear of God”.
A number of medieval Gnostic groups, such as the Cathars, identified Satan with the Old Testament God, asserting that the character of the Old Testament God was markedly different from that of the New Testament God, and was in some ways incompatible with the teachings of Christ. This idea obviously didn’t sit well with the Catholic Church
I think that the “devel” repeatedly referenced in the Parson’s Tale is in line with the medieval concept of Satan following pagan traditions. Though all of the sins referenced are serious, the way the “devel” is referenced as being amused or interested with them all suggests more of a mischievous and roguish manipulation of the human soul than an insidious and evil force. It would also be difficult for Satan to assume a truly polar opposite composition and power to God without diminishing God’s power through this juxtaposition. If Satan were truly as powerful as God then there would be little incentive to avoiding the seven deadly sins in favor of the Parson’s seven virtues. But I am not a theologian.
I think the bottom line is that we see the word “devel” so much because the Parson is looking to repeatedly present this concept of sin and evil and define its parameters. In this way, the “devel” we know is less fearsome than the God we do not.

When to Speak

What I found intriguing in the Manciple's tale is the conundrum that questions when exactly it is good idea to speak and when it is a good idea to keep your mouth shut. For example, if the crow hadn't blabbed about Phoebus's wife's indiscretion, Phoebus's wife would not have been murdered, the God of Poetry wouldn't be brought down to a human level and maybe we'd have a couple different colored crows in the world.

However, the irony lies in the fact that the moral "know when to keep quiet" is presented after reading twenty-some tales from people who felt like sharing stories. There is a sense of caution to be derived from the tale that story telling can only take you so far. At the end of the day words can have consequences, and sometimes they're consequences that are beyond your control.

Chaucer seems to preach against what many of his pilgrims are doing, and warns the reader about when storytelling is appropriate. Yet, for some reason, Chaucer feels that his Canterbury Tales are appropriate to tell. Chaucer definitely describes some taboo subjects for the time, but feels that he should tell his stories.

I can't think of Chaucer's justification for when it is not appropriate to tell except in the situation where it will damage someone's reputation and/or put his or her life at risk. Still, that seems too simple.