2. The Wife of Bath's Tale is considered by some critics to indicate that Chaucer may have been a feminist. Why might they believe this? Do you agree? Remember to cite evidence from the text or some other source.
3.Hahn's essay (see critical reader)on The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle identifies the motif of the loathly lady, but arguesit has a different purpose than asserting the feminine. What does he think the function of the story is?
4. In the context of Elizabethan and Jacobean sonnets, how can we define "conceits"?
5. Discuss what you think is the most striking or outrageous example.
6. What does Revard (1997) suggest about the relationship between language, sex, power and transgression in the English Renaissance?
According to Hahn's essay the other function of the text of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle is to establish that the elements of mystery and marvellous are characteristics expected in a romance text "so that the link of fantasy and necessity seems (as it should in romance) inevitable" (p.19, end of para 3). He refers to how after Ragnelle is transformed she is able to reconcile the male characters and became "the nexus that ties them together and makes possible the fraternal and hierarchic
ReplyDeletebonds of chivalric solidarity" (p.19, end of para.2) but also to the fact that the principal encounters occurred in the forest, "a place for both recreation and mystery" (p.19, para. 3).
2. The Wife of Bath's Tale is considered by some critics to indicate that Chaucer may have been a feminist. Why might they believe this? Do you agree? Remember to cite evidence from the text or some other source.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman (n.d.), we can find some feminist elements in The Canterbury Tales. Most of plots of The Canterbury Tales’ narrators are males, including Chaucer as a pilgrim and the author (Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman, n.d). As Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman states that “Chaucer was more sympathetic to the plight of women than most other male medieval writers” (salempress.com, n.d, para.1). Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman (n.d.) also points out that women in stories have a diversity characteristic such as courage, innocence and duplicity and women were almost independent of male in stories.
Reference
Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman. (n.d.). A feminist perspective on The Canterbury Tales. Retrieved April 16, 2013, from http://salempress.com/Store/samples/critical_insights/canterbury_feminist.htm