Wife of Bath: Battered Wife Syndrome?

Okay so I am probably going to ruffle many feminist feather's but after reading the Wife of Bath's Tale again I came up with a few questions that had never occurred to me before.

Is the Wife of Bath suffering from what is now classified as "battered wife syndrome"?

Is she as independent as she claims? If she does not need a husband why does she keep getting married?

How much agency does she really have?

The Wife of Bath admits that from the tender age of 12 she has been a married woman. SHe tells us that 3 were for money and 2 were for looks and love. She evens admits that she blamed them for ruining her marriages for absolutely no reason at all; she did it because she could. She defends her accusation by saying it is because "God has given women by nature deceit, weeping and spinning for as long as they live". If she feels the need to do this to every husband, and she understands it is unfair, why does she continue to do it? The one husband she does go into detail about, her fifth, the one that she promises to give all her life, love, and of course wealth to is the one that beats her, and apologizes with words of love, eventually causing her to lose hearing in her left ear. But after their argument he apologized and she claims "we fell into accord between ourselves" and they settle to have her control the estate.

We learn more about the Wife of Bath from her prologue (which is to be expected) than we do from the tale she tells. However, the tale and it's subject matter, gives us clear insight into what the Wife of Bath herself is looking for. Sovereignty. That is what all women want from their husbands and their lives. It is what the old women receives from the Knight to become beautiful. But with that sovereignty she chooses to love and honor her husband always. Now this is interesting that the Wife of Bath would tell a tale about women and sovereignty (something she does possess) but have her woman at the end give the one thing that would be desired (and expected) of her-sole allegiance to her husband.

I know I've rambled a bit with this but I wanted to get my thoughts out there before class discussion to see if I am following a justified thought. And I know I have not in anyway answered my questions thoroughly or completely but I think the is some merit in discussing that maybe the Wife of bath is NOT the great feminist hero of Chaucer's tale.

The Illustrated Canterbury Tales

I have to start off this post by admitting I'm using a different edition of the text then the majority of the class. I'll be discussing the illustrations that appear in my version of the text, and as such can not speak to any illustrations that may or may not appear in the other versions and for that, I apologize.

My edition of The Canterbury Tales contains wood-engraved illustrations by Edward Coley Burne-Jones (man of too many names) whose artwork originally appeared in The Works of Geoffery Chaucer, published in 1896. These illustrations are eye catching and beautiful, but ultimately a little distracting, especially as they appear in my edition at random. Illustrations of Emelye at the Temple of Diana appear pages after the action occurs in the narrative. I can only hope that the images were more appropriately used in the edition in which they first appeared.

Burne-Jones said The Works of Geoffery Chaucer, the book containing his illustrations and Chaucer's work without preface or any biographical introduction to to the man himself, would "be a little like a pocket cathedral." Upon second glance at the wood carvings, one can perhaps see how they would resemble a stained glass window, especially when paired with the ornate lettering of the prose. You can see an example of the Burne-Jones wood cuttings here. While it's obvious the respect Burne-Jones had for Chaucer's work, there's something a little heeby about how freely he goes about reposessing it, in a way, and repackaging it in a way he likes better. I doubt anything malicious was intended, and truthfully, I may be reading a bit too much into Burne-Jones's actions, here.

Personally, I feel conflicted about illustrating works of literature. On the one hand, pretty pretty pictures. On the other hand, I have a brain and an imagination, I can create my own mental pretty pretty pictures. There's something frustrating about being denied the intimacy of imaging the visuals of the story for yourself. It's part of what infuriates so many people, I think, when literature is made into film.

According to a website constructed by the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, "Early printed editions of Chaucer borrowed heavily from the elaborate illustrations found in manuscript copies. This tradition has continued throughout the history of Chaucer editions, until the twentieth century when production costs and larger press runs made illustrations prohibitively expensive." However conflicted I may feel about the illustrations, they were evidently present in the early manuscripts and reproduced in early editions until it was no longer cost effective to do so. Whether it was ever Chaucer's intention to add illustrations, I can't say, but early readers and producers of the manuscripts evidently wanted them. The UWM website on the early editions of Chaucer is worth glancing over, if you're interested at all in the changes that were made over the years and many different editions of The Canterbury Tales.

The UWM site has many examples of those early illustrated editions, but if you're looking for more, ArtStor is a great resource. I plugged in The Canterbury Tales and got back a ton of results of scanned original illustrated manuscripts from the 1400s. I put up a few examples of the results I got from ArtStor on flickr, here, but you should check it out yourself on ArtStor if you want a closer look.

So: to illustrate, or not to illustrate? The originals are interesting, from a historical perspective, but I'm not sure what is gained by copying them for modern editions. Not sure anything is lost, either, they're just sort of there. Likewise, it's interesting how the illustrations were removed from later editions, then added back in, and removed again from edition to edition. You can take them or leave them, perhaps? I'd be interested in hearing what everyone else thinks. I find the art compelling, but don't feel as if I necessarily need it sitting side by side with the prose in order to enjoy the story.

As an end note, I apologize if this initial blog entry is clunky, language or topic wise, I promise my next nine won't be as torturous.

But never mind my self deprecating tendencies, Chaucer and illustrations, what do you think?