Unit A2 1 - The Study of Poetry - 1300-1800 and Drama
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Summary "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"- Revision Notes
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Unit A2 1 - The Study of Poetry - 1300-1800 and Drama
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The Wife of Bath\\\'s Prologue and Tale
This is an in-depth set of notes on "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" by Chaucer (part of the Canterbury Tales). Whilst there is a focus on the Wife of Bath, these notes will be useful in any study of the wider text. This contains key quotations, analysis, interpretation, and notes that I made...
Geoffrey Chaucer The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale - Context & In-depth Notes and Language Analysis on the Prologue
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath Prologue & Tale - Full In-depth Context - Chaucer, Time Period, Literary Techniques
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Unit A2 1 - The Study of Poetry - 1300-1800 and Drama
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The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale- Revision
he Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale- Key Quotations
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
● “Experience, though noon auctoritee / Were in this world, is right ynogh for me
/ To speke of wo that is in mariage” (Lines 1-3)
● “Thonked be God that is eterne on live, / Housbondes at chirch dore I have
had five-” (Lines 5-6)
● “Men may devine and glosen, up and doun, / But wel I woot, expres, without
lie, / God bad us for to wexe and multiplie” (Lines 26-28)
● “Lo, heere, the wise king, daun Salomon; / I trowe he hadde wives mo than
oon… As wolde God it were leveful unto me / To be refreshed half so ofte as
he! / Which yifte of God hadde he for alle his wives!... The first night had many
a mirie fit” (Lines 35-42)
● “What rekketh me, thogh folk seye vileynie / Of shrewed Lameth and his
bigamie? / I woot wel Abraham was an hooly man, / And Jacob eek… ech of
hem hadde wives mo than two” (Lines 53-57)
● “And certes, if ther were no seed ysowe, / Virginity, thanne wherof sholde it
growe?... The dart is set up for virginity; / Cacche whoso may, who renneth
best lat see.” (Lines 71-76)
● “For peril is bothe fyr and tow t’assemble” (Line 89)
● “For wel ye know, a lord in his household, / He nath nat every vessel al of
gold; / Somme been of tree, and doon hir lord servise”. (Lines 99-101)
● “Why sholde men elles in hir books sette / That man shal yelde to his wyf hire
dette? / Now wherwith sholde he make his paiement, / If he ne used his sely
instrument?” (Lines 129-132)
● I nil envye no virginity. / Let hem be breed of pured whete-seed, / And lat us
wives hoten barley-breed; / And yet with barly-breed, Marke telle kan, / Oure
Lord Jhesu refresshed many a man.” (Lines 142-144)
● “In wyfhod I wol use myn instrument / As frely as my Makere hath it sent.”
(Lines 149-150)
● “An housbonde I wol have… Which shal be bothe my dettour and my thral, /
And have his tribulacion withal / Upon his flesh, whil that I am his wyf. / I have
the power duringe al my lyf / Upon his propre body, and noght he.” (Lines
154-159)
● “Al this sentence me liketh every deel.” (Line 162)
● “ ‘Abide!’ quod she, ‘my tale is nat bigonne. / Nay, thou shalt drinken of
another tonne…’ ” (Lines 169-170)
● “This is to seyn, myself have been the whippe” (Line 175)
● “But that I praye to al this compaignie, / If that I speke after my fantasie, / As
taketh not agrief of that I seye; / For myn entente is nat but for to pleye.”
(Lines 189-192)
,● “I shal seye sooth, tho housbondes that I hadde, / As thre of hem were goode,
and two were bad.” (Lines 195-196)
● “How pitiously a-night I made hem swinke! / And, by my fey, I tolde of it no
stoor. / They had me yeven hir lond and hir tresoor; / Me neded nat do lenger
diligence / To winne hir love, or doon hem reverence.” (Lines 202-206)
● “But sith I hadde hem hoolly in myn hond, / And sith they had me yeven al hir
lond, / What sholde I taken keep hem for to plese, / But it were for my profit
and myn ese?” (Lines 211-214)
● “For half so boldly kan ther no man / Swerve and lyen, as a womman kan.”
(Lines 227-228)
● “A wys wyf shal, if that she kan hir good, / Bere him on honde that the cow is
wood” (Lines 231-232)
● “What dostow at my neighebores hous? / Is she so fair? artow so amorous?”
(LInes 239-240)
● “Thou seist that every holour wol hire have; / She may no while in chastitee
abide, / That is assailled upon ech a side. / Thou seist som folk desiren us for
richesse, / Somme for oure shap, and somme for oure fairnesse” (Lines
254-258)
● “Thou seist men may nat kepe a castel wal, / It may so longe assailled been
overal.” (Lines 263-264)
● “For as a spaynel she wol on him lepe” (Line 267)
● “Thou shalt nat bothe, thogh that thou were wood, / Be maister of my body
and of my good” (Lines 313-314)
● “By this proverbe thou shalt understonde, / Have thou ynogh, what thar thee
recche or care / How mirily that othere folkes fare?” (Lines 328-330)
● “Thou seydest this, that I was lyk a cat… And if the cattes skin be slik and
gay, / She wol nat dwelle in house half a day, / But forth she wole, er any day
be dawed, / To shewe hir skin, and goon a-caterwawed. / This is to seye, if I
be gay, sire shrewe, / I wol renne out, my borel for to shewe.” (Lines 348-356)
● “Thou liknest eek wommenes love to helle, / To bareyne lond, ther water may
nat dwelle. / Thou liknest it also to wilde fyr; / The moore it brenneth, the
moore it hath desir / To consume every thing that brent wole be.” (Lines
371-375)
● “Atte ende I hadde the bettre in ech degree, / By sleighte, or force, or by som
maner thing” (Lines 404-405)
● “I wolde no lenger in the bed abide, / If that I felte his arm over my side, / Til
he had maad his raunson unto me; / Thanne wolde I suffre him do his
nicetee.” (Lines 409-412)
● “For though he looked as a wood leon… How mekely looketh Wilkin, oure
sheep! / Com neer, my spouse, lat me ba thy cheke! / Ye sholde been al
pacient and meke, / And han a sweete spiced conscience, / Sith ye so preche
of Jobes patience.” (Lines 432-436)
● “For if I wolde selle my bele chose, / I koude walke as fressh as is a rose”
(Lines 447-448)
, ● “And I was yong and ful of ragerie, / Stibourn and strong, and joly as a pie”
(Lines 455-456)
● “Now of my fifth housbonde wol I telle. / God lete his soule nevere come in
helle! / And yet was he to me the mooste shrewe;... But in oure bed he was so
fressh and gay… That thogh he hadde me bete on every bon, / He koude
winne again my love anon.” (Lines 503-512)
● “He yaf me al the bridel in myn hond, / To han the governance of hous and
lond, / And of his tongue, and of his hond also; / And made him brenne his
book anon right tho.” (Lines 813-816)
The Wife of Bath’s Tale
● “Wommen desiren to have sovereintee / As wel over hir housband as hir love,
And for to been in maistrie him above.” (Lines 1038-1040)
Notes on the Trustworthiness of the Wife of Bath
● Critics debate whether Chaucer’s pilgrims are individual characters with their
own multifaceted personalities, or if they’re representatives of the complex
and sometimes contradictory groups that they represent (such as the Wife
and the regular women of “barley-breed”).
● “Alisoun of Bath is not a 'character' in the modern sense at all, but an
elaborate iconographic figure designed to show the manifold implications of
an attitude.”- Robertson
● The Wife may be a representation, but she cannot be fully severed from any
sense of individual circumstance, as it is unreasonable to expect a
fourteenth-century audience to fully separate the Wife from their perceptions
of their neighbours.
○ However, equally, given the different style of writing, mediaeval
audiences may have been more used to receiving characters that were
obvious caricatures, thus allowing a degree of separation between
fiction and reality that doesn’t exist today.
● The issue comes in “determining how the fourteenth-century reader felt about
the relationship between characters in literature and characters in life”.
● The concept of “biography” in the fourteenth century was typically confined to
those of privilege and class. Chaucer expands this by extending his fictional
biographies to members of each social stratum. In the fourteenth century, a
biography (often delivered in the form of a eulogy), was more focused on
ethics and psychology than facts, and there was often no boundary between
the two. Essentially, the fourteenth century writer chose subjects because
they were morally interesting, and often as a result they challenged the rules
surrounding mediaeval morality.
● “Within the Wife’s character, there is a “graceful fusion of the One and the
Many”. It is strange, therefore, to treat the fact it is possible to explain
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