Tuesday, Oct. 18 Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

1. Tuesday, Oct. 18Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

2. Looking back at Pardoner

3. Or, another way

4. Wife of Bath

5. Her Story

6. Ways to analyze any text, applied to Wife of Bath’s Tale – Rape/ Loving Sex, Youth/ Age, Male/ Female, Obedience/ Control, etc.

7. Imagery – trace an image through the text • Books: • 1st line: Her experience vs. “authority” = books • Bible (wedding at Cana • Story of the Samaritan woman • “That gentil text can I wel understonde” • Solomon, Lameth, Abraham, • Clerk tries to rule her by books • “Why that I rente out of his book a leef” • “That I was beten for a book, pardee” • 791 “Al sodeynly three leves have I plight • Out of his book, right as he radde, and ede”

8. Oppositional categories • Greimas sets them up. • What ones might you use?

9. Overlay onto an older story (or younger) • Wife of Bath’s story vs. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight • Decapitation is an issue • Both cannot return to Round Table until they have achieved death/ knowledge • Both wander into the land of magic • Both are controlled by older women (G by aunt Morgan le Fey and hero by the hag) • Both are put in bed with women, where sex should happen • Then what?

10. Frames • Connections between Wife of Bath’s Prologue and her story • Connections between the whole of the Canterbury Tales and her story

11. Interpolated Stories • Midas - the story in Ovid, • Also, there is no wife. The person who knows the story is his BARBER. Why wife? • A reed grew up there which whispers his story to the world. • The truth will out. • How do you think that reflects back on the tale of the young man and the old hag?

12. Maps • ? Hero’s journey map?

13. Metaphors

14. Mise en abyme

15. Norman Rockwell doing it

16. With mirrors

17. Cameras photographing cameras

18. What could you answer for the midterm? • Who said this? • Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote                  When April with its sweet-smelling showers2         The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,                 Has pierced the drought of March to the root,3         And bathed every veyne in swich licour                 And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid4         Of which vertu engendred is the flour;                 By which power the flower is created;

19. Who said this? • Virginitee is greet perfeccion,                Virginity is great perfection,106       And continence eek with devocion,                And continence also with devotion,107       But Crist, that of perfeccion is welle,                But Christ, who is the source of perfection,108       Bad nat every wight he sholde go selle                Did not command that every one should go sell109       Al that he hadde, and gyve it to the poore,                All that he had, and give it to the poor,110       And in swich wise folwe hym and his foore.                And in such wise follow him and his footsteps.111       He spak to hem that wolde lyve parfitly;                He spoke to those who would live perfectly;112       And lordynges, by youre leve, that am nat I.                And gentlemen, by your leave, I am not that.113       I wol bistowe the flour of al myn age                I will bestow the flower of all my age114       In the actes and in fruyt of mariage.                In the acts and in fruit of marriage.

20. Who said this? • "Lordynges," quod he, "in chirches whan I preche,                 "Gentlemen," he said, "in churches when I preach,330         I peyne me to han an hauteyn speche,                 I take pains to have a loud voice,331         And rynge it out as round as gooth a belle,                 And ring it out as round as goes a belle,332         For I kan al by rote that I telle.                 For I know all by rote that I tell.333         My theme is alwey oon, and evere was --                 My theme is always the same, and ever was --334         Radix malorum est Cupiditas.                 'Greed is the root of all evil.'

21. Who told this story? • "Now lat us sitte and drynke, and make us merie,                 "Now let us sit and drink, and make us merry,884         And afterward we wol his body berie."                 And afterward we will bury his body."885         And with that word it happed hym, par cas,                 And with that word it happened to him, by chance,886         To take the botel ther the poyson was,                 To take the bottle where the poison was,887         And drank, and yaf his felawe drynke also,                 And drank, and gave his fellow drink also,888         For which anon they storven bothe two.                 For which straightway they died, both of the two.

22. Short essay/ chart questions • Is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight an epic or chivalric romance? • What does Sir Gawain and the Green Knight mean? • Which type of criticism seems to you to be the most useful in your readings (whatever your favorite type of literature)? • If you were teaching “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath,” would you feel as if you were teaching a Middle Ages text or something from the Early Modern Period? • To you, which seems most interesting and significant in Beowulf: the structure with its emphasis on death and failure OR the vividly described battles against monsters OR the heroes and monsters themselves?