ENG 2301
Study Guide for The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
Be sure to read the paragraph in the introduction
to the Canterbury Tales (p. 2049) that introduces the Wife of Bath’s
Prologue and Tale. You should also
review the description of the Wife given in ll. 433-64 of the General Prologue,
and you may want to read a brief summary
(at the top, in blue) of what she says here. You may also find
this
page helpful.
1.
What gives the Wife authority to speak about marriage?
2.
In the first part of her Prologue, the Wife defends herself at length.
What is it she feels the need to defend, and who seems to be (or to have
been) the attacker?
3.
How does she say she chose her husbands?
Note that she says #6 will be welcome “whenever I am faced / With yet
another” (ll. 51-52).
4.
What is the source for the evidence and examples the Wife cites in her
argument? What challenge does she
offer in ll. 65-68?
5.
In Chaucer’s society, it was considered far better to remain a virgin
than to marry. What does the Wife
say about that? Notice the
comparisons she makes in ll. 105-08 and ll. 149-52. (Barley bread was ordinary daily food, while white bread made
from fine wheat was considered a luxury.)
6.
What “debt” does the Wife expect her husband to pay, not once but all
the time? The verse she is
referring to, I Corinthians 7:4, says this:
“The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise
also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife”
(KJV).
7.
After the Pardoner interrupts, what does the Wife say will be the subject
of her “whole tale”? This
subject is the focus of both the narrative of her own life in her Prologue and
the story about a knight she tells as her Tale.
8.
Her first three husbands, the Wife says, were “kindly men, and rich,
and old.” She also says she
“ruled them,” and she goes on to show how she did it. What was her technique?
9.
In ll. 254-306 and ll. 341-80, the Wife repeats a strongly misogynist (misogyny:
hatred of women) speech. Whom
did she accuse of saying things like this?
Ideas like these were commonly taught by male authorities in the Middle
Ages.
10.
The Wife of Bath admits in ll. 471-82 that she is getting old.
How does she feel now about the “fling” she had when she was younger?
What is her attitude to life now?
11.
Husband #4 dared to have a mistress (ll. 455-56)!
How did the Wife get even with him?
(Read carefully—she does not say she too had an affair.)
12.
How does the Wife feel about (the memory of) husband #5?
Note that he beat her (l. 513), as the laws of the time allowed him to
do.
13.
Why did the Wife marry #5? (He
had been a student at Oxford—could she have her eye on the Oxford student who
is one of the pilgrims as a possible #6?) In ll. 543-66 we learn that his name was Jenkin and that she
had promised to marry him “If I became a widow” before the husband #4 died.
In fact, she considers it prudent always to have her eye on the next
husband.
14.
In ll. 573-82 the Wife tells how she used her mother’s technique to
charm Jenkin. How did she do it?
(Remember that the General Prologue, l. 464, said she knew the
“tricks” of love.)
15.
How old was husband #5, and how old was the Wife, when they married?
Why did she marry him? (She
says this again, giving essentially the same reason.)
Note line 612—in this time, the Church taught that sex was strictly for
procreation (reproduction), not for pleasure, so in the Wife’s terms “love
was sin.” How does the Wife feel
about that idea?
16.
The Wife gained wealth from husbands #1, #2, and #3.
What happens to her property when she marries Jenkin?
17.
What does Jenkin do when he disapproves of his wife’s actions?
(See ll. 639-783.) Here we
have another long misogynist speech, but in this case the husband really says
it. According to the Wife of Bath,
what would happen if women wrote books? (The
Wife often sounds like a feminist, but notice that, as the introduction points
out, she is probably showing off for her all-male audience, and notice too that
a male author created this character and wrote all her words.)
18.
What did the Wife do when she could stand no more of Jenkin’s
preaching, and how did he respond? What
did she accuse him of? What was the
result?
19.
After this event, what was marriage #5 like?
20. As the Wife of Bath’s Prologue ends, three other characters speak. What kinds of things do the Friar and the Summoner say to each other, and who orders them to be quiet so the Wife can begin her Tale? (Remember that the terms of the pilgrims’ agreement allow him to do this.) Arguments and comments like these in the prologues of the stories (and in other connecting bits) create the frame-story within which the Tales are set. The frame is incomplete, but there is more to it than just the General Prologue.
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