The Wife of
Bath’s tale focuses on feminist discourse. It’s a story of a knight who comes
across a young virgin and rapes her. He his sentenced to death but Queen
Guinevere pleads for the knight’s life and King Arthur allows her to dish out
his sentence. She gives him to a year and a day to discover what woman really
want, and if he comes back with the right answer he will keep his life. If not,
he will die. The knight rides off and everywhere he goes he gets a different
answer. Until he comes across a field of maidens dancing and when he approaches
they disappear and turn into an old hag that tells him she will tell him the secret,
but he must grant her one wish. He agrees but once his life is spared and he
finds out what it is he’s no so keen. In the end he has no choice but to marry
and sleep with the old hag who tuns into a beautiful maiden only in his eyes
Was Geoffrey Chaucer a feminist? It seems he
may have been. In the knight’s tale the lady wishes the same. She demands
respect and equality. He finally comes across the old hag who tells him she
will give him the answer if he promises her one thing. He agrees and goes back
to Queen Guinevere and tells her woman desire sovereignty over household and lover and to have the upper hand at all
times. The Queen is satisfied and give him his life. The old hag comes forward
and he is forced to marry her. He fights her love and, in the end, submits and
as he does so she turns into a beautiful woman and stays that way only in his
eyes. The original version is extremely hard to read as 1300s text is a lot
different. They were quite crude and open in the way they thought and narrated
in the 1300s quite uncouth.
Chaucer’s tale was influenced by the Loathly Lady who appears to be of
Celtic origin as it appears in Irish Myth. A beautiful woman comes to the king
and gives him a test he must complete before she gives him sovereignty over his
land.
Then there is the Goddess sovereignty a hideous hag who wants to marry
the king. She promises him loyalty and will do the same for his lineage. It
appears that man’s imagination was as it is today and with a bit of science
fiction as well. She changes shape to form a disgusting hag to a beautiful
woman. She was a shape shifter. Sounds like a bit of ancient science fiction to
me. As many tales there were of ladies like these Chaucer’s were the most
popular. I’d say Chaucer was a feminist. We have the knight’s tale. The word
Feminist hadn’t even been invented in Chaucer’s time. “Tis hard to tell.
That is a change of shape, woman,” said the lad.
“That is true,”
she said.
“who are you?”
said the lad.
“I am sovereignty [in
flaithes],” she said. And she said this:
“King of Tara, I am
sovereignty;
I will tell you
its great benefit
[It will belong]
to your descendants forever, above every kindred;
There is the true
reason for which I speak”
Koch and Cary, The Celtic Heroic Age: literacy source for ancient
Celtic Europe and early Ireland and Wales, 1997, pp.194-5.
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