Talk:The Wife of Bath's Tale

message: Minor edits of the prose, added and corrected plot details.
DigitalMedievalist 22:00, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor

message: Lines such as “that for syk unnethes myghte they stonde” are illegible to me, and I am an English teacher. Given that many readers of Wikipedia are not native speakers of the language, along with many native speakers who find it difficult to unravel the language of Chaucer's day, it seems wise for us to provide explanations of the lines whose spellings are so different from modern language as to confuse the average unfamiliar person. For example, if only the word "myghte" were in this quote, I venture to say most people could decipher the word, but what I see in this line as a whole looks like "that for six / sick [unintelligible word] they stood / stoned," which makes no sense. Lawikitejana (talk) 17:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggest "translating" many Chaucerian quotes 

message: Sorry if I'm wrong, but this section leaves me with the impression that nobody has every analyzed the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale but Mary Carruthers, Helen Cooper, and Carolyn Dinshaw. Are there any, er, male viewpoints on this material?
Also there are currently two summaries of the tale, one before and one after the Themes section.  --thezeus18  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.179.24.46 (talk) 03:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought the very same thing when reading that section.  The amount of text devoted to analysis by those scholars is undue weight. Switzpaw (talk) 06:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason that Carruthers, Cooper, and Dinshaw are cited is that their criticism has been, by far, the most influential in Chaucer studies the past 25 years or so, and doesn't have anything to do with their gender, per se.  All the same, the most recent of their work is now some years past, and the section could use updating; I'll have a look at recent Chaucer bibliographies and see if we can add some more current citations, of whatever gender. Clevelander96 (talk) 15:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that there has been some confusion in the headers and summaries -- the first section should be "Themes of the Prologue" and the second"Themes of the Tale."  I've renamed them as such, and deleted the redundant summary.  The current summary was very poorly written, a kind of bit-by-bit crib which gave uneven weight to parts of the narrative, and was rhetorically awkward.  I've revised in a clearer way which I hope will meet the consensus here. Clevelander96 (talk) 15:47, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Themes section 

message: I've now done considerable cleanup to the article, and invite further work, revisions, and comments.  The summaries are now much clearer, and are confined to plot elements (someone, apparently reading line by line and summarizing as they went, included numerous non-plot details). The small section discussing sources and analogues of the Tale is moved into the Tale section, and all "Themes" are treated together, as the Prologue and the Tale have very similar themes and conclusions.  Some of the subsections might need to be retitled -- perhaps a section on "Themes" and one on "Critical Views" or "Criticism" -- this will take more work.  I've also added a few more recent articles to the bibliography, and cleaned up many odd formatting elements, unattributed quotes, and awkward sentences. Clevelander96 (talk) 14:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: Debt, or Dett, is the middle English word. It should probably be thought of as equivalent to the modern "obligation," thus, there is no necessary economic connection to it. It was also thought of in medieval theology as mutual, that is to say, sex is the obligation of both partners to one another. It was thus spoken of in confession manuals issued to help parish priests deal with their parishioners, and therefore should not be construed as implying that it is owed only by the wife to the husband. It was an equal obligation.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.161.86.159 (talk) 19:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Marriage "Debt" 

message: The Summary covers only the Wife's "Tale" -- there is no account of her lengthy Prologue at all -- but the subsequent more detailed discussion focusses almost exclusively on the Prologue. Search for "The Wife of Bath's Prologue" just redirects to this page. Has a section been blanked? It seems that some summary/account of the Prologue is needed if indeed this article is to encompass both Prologue and Tale. Clevelander96 (talk) 17:10, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whence the Prologue?? 

message: It does rather seem like this article was either originally written or hacked at length by a dour medieval cleric. Let's do Chaucer's Wife of Bath a little justice here, what do you say? Fb2ts (talk) 00:33, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Rewrite Pending?

message: Looked up the Helen Cooper (b. 1947) quote featuring the use of the strangely unwieldy term "antifeminism" and she does indeed use it on page 141 of her Oxford Guide to The Canterbury Tales (p. 141). Cooper is a Fellow and Tutor in English at University College, Oxford. She was their first female Fellow. Fb2ts (talk) 16:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antifeminism 

message: The section entitled Femininity states:
"By questioning universal assumptions of male dominance, making demands in her own right, conducting negotiations within her marriages and disregarding conventional feminine ideals, Chaucer's Wife of Bath was ahead of her time."
There is no evidence of a universal assumption of male dominance within the middle ages. What we do know is that the religion promoted a patriarchal, male dominance, norm to the public. We don't know to what degree couples incorporated that patriarchal norm into their private lives and we don't know the specific power negotiations  made by couples. All we know is that the public likely outwardly agreed with the norm of male dominance, but we have no information on how all the married people conducted their affairs in private.
The idea this woman was ahead of her time has no clear evidence supporting it, and frankly it sounds somewhat chauvinist in the sense of assuming that people in times past lacked the sophistication we currently enjoy today.
There is an old English superstition that says the "the household where sage grows well in the garden, the wife rules". And so the fact this superstition exists indicates that regardless of what norms are promoted by the ruling institutions, married couples negotiate between themselves how they decide to do things. To assume that the woman in this story was ahead of her time is to make assumptions about married couples of that time while lacking complete information about those married couples.
https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/s/sages-05.html  — Preceding unsigned comment added by PatrickDoi (talk • contribs) 22:18, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ahead of her time?

message: What does the old woman have in common with the Wife of Bath? 109.177.25.17 (talk) 13:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old women and wife of bath 

message: As someone who is not well-versed in this topic but is interested in learning more, I would like to share my honest opinion. This article appears somewhat problematic.
This article's of the tale seems biased towards feminist interpretations and thus appears to overlooks other potential interpretations or criticisms of the tale. For example, the article emphasizes the tale's portrayal of female empowerment and critiques of patriarchy, but may not adequately address potential criticisms of the tale's portrayal of other themes. By other themes, I refer to potential criticisms or alternative interpretations of "The Wife of Bath's Tale" beyond its portrayal of gender roles and critiques of patriarchy. For example, some scholars may argue that the tale also explores themes of marriage, sexuality, power, or religion, and that these themes deserve more attention or analysis in the article.
Another possible argument here could be that the article's use of sources is biased towards a particular scholarly perspective or school of thought, and does not present a diverse enough range of perspectives. For example, the article may rely heavily on feminist literary criticism and overlook other potential sources of analysis or interpretation. This may contribute to an exclusionary feminist or academic environment that may discourage some readers from engaging with the material.
Overall, I suggest that the Wikipedia article on "The Wife of Bath's Tale" may be biased towards feminist interpretations, rely too heavily on sources from a particular scholarly perspective, and overlook potential criticisms or alternative interpretations beyond its portrayal of gender roles and critiques of patriarchy.
This may be somewhat off-topic from the aforementioned critique, but a poignant addendum. The introduction to "The Wife of Bath's Tale" is overly verbose and indulgent, providing excessive detail and analysis that detracts from the reader's engagement with the actual text. The length of the introduction may discourage some readers from even attempting to engage with the story itself, and may also contribute to a sense of academic elitism or exclusivity that can be off-putting to some. While some level of contextualization and analysis is necessary, the length and depth of this introduction may be excessive, and could have been pared down to a more manageable and accessible size. 
I'm curious to hear your thoughts, and to what degree you may relate. Thank you for your attention. Kjertesvein (talk) 15:37, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objectivity and neutrality, and wordy.