Weeks 4-6
Please use the comments section to answer questions. Do not try to answer all questions. Try to keep up an average of one per week, with time for a few comments on the ideas of others.
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 Ragnelleidentifies 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?
Question Six: What does Revard (1997) suggest about the relationship between language, sex, power and transgression in the English Renaissance?
ReplyDeleteIn 1997, renaissance scholar Stella Revard published Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn, and the Female Pindaric, an essay comparing critiques by male contemporaries of female poets Katherine Phillips and Aphra Behn. Within the essay, Revand discusses the aforementioned poets in Renaissance England and the effect the pair had on the literary world with and against their male counterparts. It’s important to note that, though woman were often subordinated to men, the renaissance, which coincided with Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, “significantly challenged and disrupted contemporary assumptions about gender roles” (Preedy, 2009, p. 46). It was during this rebirth, as such, that the line of demarcation, concerning social limits and boundaries, was being broadened, notably in regards to the place of woman, their treatment and their rights, though, according to Revard, spread heavily between male and female poets, was a semblance of inequality. Common notions of English Literatures golden age illustrate that male poets of the era were customarily opposed to the concept of equal opportunity among both sexes. This is further portrayed in Wynne-Davies 1999 anthology Woman Poets of the Renaissance in which she states that “it is undoubtedly true that woman writers of the early modern period did not have the same opportunities as men” (p. xx).
Females, recognised inherently as being woman, ahead of being poets, were not widely represented in renaissance poetry. Their sexuality and physical attractiveness were seen, by some, as weapons employed to attain an unequitable leverage over the male poet. The Young Lady of the Female Wit volume (as cited by Revard, 1997) contends that:
“For should we understand as much as they,
They fear their Empire might decay.
For they know woman heretofore
Gain’d Victories, and envied Laurels wore:
And now they fear we’ll once again
Ambitious be to reign
And to invade the Dominions of the Brain”
This accession of power in distinction of the female indicates that if a female were to govern wit, a man would not singularly give up the right to control the aforementioned, but also give up the right to “dominate in other areas” (Revard, 1997). Abraham Cowley, an English poet thought largely to be responsible for the invention of the illustrious Pindaric Ode, which according to Hill (2011) “connoted to produce poems of praise in an especially elevated style” (p.136), acknowledges the works of the prosperous Anglo-Welsh poet Katherine Phillips. The acclimation demonstrates not that Cowley attested her competence as a poet, in which he asserts that she is only, “the best of the females” (p.23), but instead her virtue as being a woman. This is, to a great extent, at variance with his strong praise or accolade for Flemish Baroque artist Sir Anthony Van Dyke, for which he wrote the following (as cited in Revard, 1997):
“His All-resembling Pencil did out-pass
The mimick Imag’ry of Looking-glass.
Nor was Life les perfect than his Art,
Nor was his Hand less erring than his Heart”
The ode connotes a connection or association between all facets of the aforesaid question, by, more or less so, setting forth that her work shall not be as good as his own, for the simple reason that, she is not equal to him. It signifies a complexity that broadened the bounds encircling the battle of inequality, or simply put “illustrates the difficulty that a male poet has in praising a woman” (Revand, 1997).
The following are references associated with my previous post.
ReplyDeleteReferences:
Hill, E. D. (2011). Politics, poetics, and the Pindaric ode: 1450-1700. Seventeenth – Century News (Online), 69, 136-139. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/ 1010054619?accountid=8440
Preedy, C. K. (2009). “I am no woman, i”: Gender, sexuality, and power in Elizabethan erotic verse. Retrieved April 9, 2015, from http://research.ncl.ac.uk/e-pisteme/issues/issue03/contents/e- pisteme%20Vol.2%282%29%20-%20Chloe%20K%20Preedy.pdf
Revard, S. P. (1997). Katherine Phillips, Aphra Behn, and the Female Pindaric in Representing Women in Renaissance England, edited by Claude J. Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
Wynne-Davis, M. (1999). Woman poets of the renaissance. New York, NY: Routledge.
Well done Natasha. I think the fact that Queen Elizabeth 1st lived so long and was such a strong queen made a difference to how women were perceived. The Church, however, would have been a bastion of male privilege.
DeleteWhat does Revard (1997) suggest about the relationship between language, sex, power and transgression in the English Renaissance?
ReplyDeleteRevard (1997) discusses a social tension of male sovereignty, primarly in the academic/arts realm however you could argue it parallels society as a whole, during the english renaissance. In this article, Revard focuses primarly on two poets Katherine Phillips and Aphra Behn and the general commentary and views of these two, shared by male poets. Through this examination of commendatory poetry, Revard reveals interesting issues relating to language and gender in the culture of that period.
The author highlights an age old gender contest. A contest where men occupy the realm of intellect and females, the realm of virtue and beauty. The author points to how the male commendatory renaissance poetry aimed to praise female poets, at the same time subtly keeping the females first in virtue and only second in poetry. The poetry persisted in attempting to not let poets of the female gender pass as just poets. The main strategy for this seems to have been to first praise virtue. To focus primarly on the females beauty and virtue, is to then remove them from the same ‘contest’ as the male poets and to put the poets in their own category as ‘female-poets’ (Revard, 1997).
Revard (1997) is suggesting that the language of the time was used by male poets to exert a power over females, to maintain the status quo. Language was a tool used to subjugate women. Women could not attend universities and so could not learn Greek and Latin (Revard, 1997). Therefore, historic texts in these languages were kept from the gender. Furthermore, the act of comparing these ‘female poets’ to muses and the act of praising virtue first and poetry and intellect second (Revard, 1997). Through these examples Revard is showing how language in English Renaissance can exert power. How the society would use language as a means of communicating the role gender holds.
References
Revard, S.P. (1997). Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn, and the Female Pindaric in Representing Women in Renaissance England, edited by Claude J. Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth. Columbia: University of Missouri Press
A perceptive analysis, John. This separating of women into a 'women's poet' category lasted well into the Twentieth Century. Some would say that female writers and poets are still being subtly ghettoized, but that's a harder argument to make. Language, however, has always been about power, political and social, and what are known a 'mechanisms of exclusion' are still active...
DeleteWell argued. But please note that 'Loathly Lady is not a story but a motif found in many stories, including The Wife of Bath. Also note that there is a counter-argument. Just to play the Devil's advocate here, the power Queen G wields in this situation is granted to her by the king, so male power is still in control in the background. Then of course we have the male writer himself ultimately pulling the strings.
ReplyDeleteThe opposite of Carter's Chaucer as proto-feminist theory is the idea that Chaucer was mocking women's aspirations even while appearing to give them voice.
5.Discuss what you think is the most striking or outrageous example.
ReplyDeleteI think Tsarevna Lyagushka (The Frog Princess) it a outrageous example of 'Loathly Lady'. The king wants his three sons to marry. To accomplish this, he creates a test to help them find brides. According to the King's rules, each prince will find his bride where the arrow lands.The youngest son's arrow is picked up by a frog.The king assigns his three prospective daughters-in-law various tasks, such as spinning cloth and baking bread. In every task, the frog far outperforms the two other lazy brides-to-be. In some versions, the frog uses magic to accomplish the tasks, and though the other brides attempt to emulate the frog, they cannot perform the magic. Still, the young prince is ashamed of his frog bride until she is magically transformed into a human princess. i believe this is a good example as the Loathly lady isn't human at the start as she is a magic frog. which i can understand why the prince is ashamed to be married to a frog as this is illogical. but it has the exact ending as she turns into a beautiful human princess.
2. ‘The wife of Bath’s Tale’ is considered by some critics as an indication 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 sources.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Chaucer was a feminist because with his story 'The wife of Bath's Tale' the Queen has most influence, even though the King is still ruler, he is disregarded in the story. in the story the knight sees a young women and takes her 'Maidenhood' he is then captured by the Queen, in which he pleas for his life. the Queen then sends him on a quest to seek what all women desire. the knights life is in the hands of the Queen. he sets of for his quest and asks several women what they desire. but all women answer with differences. as he begins to lose hope he finds this women who is considered old and ugly, he askes her the same question. but she replies that she will answer if he promises to do her a favour. he agrees and then goes back to the Queen. he says that what most women want is to have sovereignty over their husbands, which is unanimously agreed to be true by the women of the court, who accordingly free the Knight. The old hag then explains to the court the deal she has struck with the Knight, and publicly requests his hand in marriage. Although aghast, he realizes he has no other choice and eventually agrees. On their wedding night the hag is upset that he is repulsed by her in bed. She reminds him that her looks can be an asset—she will be a virtuous wife to him because no other men would desire her. She asks him what he would prefer—an old ugly hag who is loyal, true and humble or a beautiful woman about whom he would always have doubts concerning her faithfulness. The Knight responds by saying that the choice is hers, an answer which pleases her greatly. Now that she has won power over him, she asks him to kiss her, promising both beauty and fidelity. The Knight turns to look at the hag again, but now finds a young and lovely woman. They live happily into old age together. this story i believe shows that the women in the story have the most power.
Answer 2:
ReplyDeleteThe Wife of Bath's Tale (The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe), found in the Canterbury Tales s regarded as one of the most well-known works of Geoffrey Chaucher, written to mainly provide an insight into the role of women in the middle ages .
There are several contradicting theories as to how people interpret Chaucher's intentions/pupose with regard to the portrayal of women within the general theme and the context of the text. There are some elements in the text that may suggest that Chaucher was pro feminism (Batchelor, 2009).However, from a personal perspective, analysis of the text did not suggest that Chaucher's depiction of women were particularly positive and/or in favour of them.
Perhaps attempting to make sense of why a reader/audience would assume that Chaucher utilised feminist notions into the text could further help understand why one might feel that he had a positive bias towards portraying the power role for women in the tale.
According to Batchelor (2009), the wife of Baths standpoint on women's desires is such that the paths of mastery (maistrie) crosses barriers between classes that essentially suggest that women from all different backgrounds desire and want the same basic freedoms. It could be said that the wife's own newly found position as a developing merchant class leader maker her strongly advocate notions of empowering women and take into account their desires (Batchelor, 2009).
Let us take the concept of the use of 'maistrie' (mastery) in the text for instance;
-When the knight utters his answer to the queen's question, "As well over her husband as her love,And to be in mastery above him." he seems to be proposing and absolute feminist idea of authority; He goes on to say "This is your greatest desire though you kill me. Do as you please; I am here subject to your will" (Benson, 2008). At this point, it is quite evident that the knight has surrendered all his will and power to the wife of bath, thus subjecting himself to a totally submissive state (uncommon during traditional times) before her and the ladies at the court and subsequently positioning the women into the role of mastery. This in turn seems to put the textual content in favour of feminist ideals.
-As the queen had done previously before, the old hag in the tale sought the knight to reach the deduction of female supremacy on his own. By doing so, she held on to the idea that she she could not be accountable for persuading him directly. "Choose yourself which may be more most please, and most honour to you and me also" he says. "I do not care which of the two, for if it pleases you is enough for me" (Benson, 2008).Here again, we witness the knight yielding all his power to the mercy of the woman --to which the hag responds with; "Then have I gotten mastery of you since I may choose and govern as I please?" accrediting power and mastery as factors that enable this decision making (Benson, 2008).
From a personal point of view,even through the above mentioned example, it is possibly true that although the text may somehow appear to have views in support of feminist ideals, the underlying intentions are nothing but that; and are in fact, quite contradictory to the former. The male submission aspect and surrendering of power,giving all mastery to the women in this case are done so in a manipulative fashion; not exactly what feminism strives or stands for as it aims to preach equality amongst the sexes but not superiority, thus defeating the purpose of the cause (Batchelor, 2009).
References:
Batchelor, J. (2009). A Mixed Message. Retrieved March 30,2014 from http://ayjw.org/articles.php?id=607031.
Benson L.D. The wife of baths prologue: an interlinear translation.Retrieved March 30,2014 from