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the wife of baths Critiquing the Critics: Reinventing the Same Idea, Again, and Again. There is a na?ve trend festering in modern literary criticism, whereby critics
wife of baths tale Marriage in The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale The views of marriage expressed in both Prologue and Tale are those of the Wife; whether they
The wife of Baths tale Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony or true delight? Milton, Paradise Lost, VIII, ll. 383-4 GEOFFREY CHAUCER AND THE WIFE OF
Each pilgrim will have to tell two tales, on the way there and back. Two tales told are "The Wife of Baths Prologue" and "The Clerk's Tale". The Wife of Bath believes
The parson who attempts to live his life as an ideal for others was appalled to learn of the wife of baths four husbands and as she told how she gained control over
Submitted by nicksaint on February 23, 2008
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Critiquing the Critics: Reinventing the Same Idea, Again, and Again.
There is a naïve trend festering in modern literary criticism, whereby critics feebly try to analyze and interpret ancient literature through the application of modern philosophies, concepts, and social theory in an attempt to breathe new life in the skeleton of the proverbial dead horse. Occasionally, a critic will serendipitously stumble onto an idea that sets him apart from his peers and ingeniously presents the criticized work in a new light; however, more often than not, these critiques result in a confounding quagmire of copious compound sentences with curiously, cryptic misapplications of complicated words that when spoken aloud could easily be mistaken for the drunken ramblings of a besotted Scrabble expertsuch is the magic of literary criticism. This critical phenomenon can be seen in virtually every piece of antique literature, but is particularly poignant in the myriad analyses of The Prologue and Tale of the Wife of Bath, by Geoffrey Chaucer where critics tirelessly exhume the text to reexamine both the Wife and
Chaucer for any sign of modern feminism and bend and twist its text in support of their predetermined conclusions.
Although it shouldn't need to be said, the idea of Chaucer being a feminist in the traditional sense is rather absurd and is largely just the wishful thinking of ideological scholars. In fact, there is a strong and generally accepted argument to the contrary that the Wife's prologue and tale are actually anti-feminist in nature. Chaucer's political views on the other hand are a subject of much debate. One critic, Treharne, stabs close to a true analysis of the "The Wife of Bath" when she says that the Wife "is the uncontrollable voice that eludes interpretative truth. The ultimate secret she reveals is that all who think they can control, penetrate, and master such texts as she represents are deluded. All the...
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