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A review by imme_van_gorp
The Wife of Bath by Geoffrey Chaucer, Peter G. Beidler
3.0
We were discussing Geoffrey Chaucer for my Medieval Literature course, and The Wife of Bath|963617 seemed like, by far, the most interesting story from The Canterbury Tales to me. So, I figured: why not try and read it?
Well.. Upon starting this tale, I was immediately remembered as to why I do not just "try and read" things from my Medieval Literature class. In this case, the simple reason for it being: I. Do. Not. Speak. Middle. English.
So. Unless I wanted to torturously give myself the biggest headache known to mankind, trying to decipher these word-puzzles, I decided it would be best if I went and read the modern translation of this text rather than the original. So, I did.
And yea, that definitely helped. The story suddenly became readable, and I found out the content of this tale is truly quite interesting. It seems revolutionary almost in its feminism, considering it was written in the 14th century.
The prologue and tale is centred around a woman giving a random male stranger some advice about marriage, seeing how she's quite the expert after being married five times herself already.
The text gives insight into how women were treated and portrayed in the Middle Ages, yet the author also seems to use this story as a critique towards these prejudices and mistreatments towards women of his own time.
I was honestly extremely surprised by that! I didn't expect it at all, and it was kind of cool. Not going to lie.
Of course it’s not all rainbows and sunshine, though, as there are still plenty of misogynistic stereotypes to be found here. But hey. It’s written in the Middle Ages. What do you expect?
I thought this was going to be more boring, honestly, but I quite enjoyed myself while reading this. It's an interesting piece of social history.
Well.. Upon starting this tale, I was immediately remembered as to why I do not just "try and read" things from my Medieval Literature class. In this case, the simple reason for it being: I. Do. Not. Speak. Middle. English.
So. Unless I wanted to torturously give myself the biggest headache known to mankind, trying to decipher these word-puzzles, I decided it would be best if I went and read the modern translation of this text rather than the original. So, I did.
And yea, that definitely helped. The story suddenly became readable, and I found out the content of this tale is truly quite interesting. It seems revolutionary almost in its feminism, considering it was written in the 14th century.
The prologue and tale is centred around a woman giving a random male stranger some advice about marriage, seeing how she's quite the expert after being married five times herself already.
The text gives insight into how women were treated and portrayed in the Middle Ages, yet the author also seems to use this story as a critique towards these prejudices and mistreatments towards women of his own time.
I was honestly extremely surprised by that! I didn't expect it at all, and it was kind of cool. Not going to lie.
Of course it’s not all rainbows and sunshine, though, as there are still plenty of misogynistic stereotypes to be found here. But hey. It’s written in the Middle Ages. What do you expect?
I thought this was going to be more boring, honestly, but I quite enjoyed myself while reading this. It's an interesting piece of social history.