Wife of Bath

Question 1

Carruthers

Answer 1

The wife’s financial independence gives her the power to choose her husband, so she can choose her love: thus, wealth and autonomy are the greatest components of love

Question 2

Steve Ellis

Answer 2

To read through rather than with the Wife makes us aware of how the repressed feminine exists within and not independently of the dominant masculine

Question 3

Steve Ellis on the Knight

Answer 3

The Knight inhabits the position of the victim. In this sense, he is assigned the role of a rape victim

Question 4

Women having maistrie

Answer 4

My thral
Which shal be both my dettour and my thral
Thanne have I gete of yow maistrie

Question 5

Men and maistrie

Answer 5

For as yow liketh, it suffiseth me
His herte bathed in a bath of blisse
And she obeyed hym in every thyng
Taak al my good and let my body go

Question 6

Poverte

Answer 6

a spectacle is

Question 7

Women in court

Answer 7

Ful many a noble wyf, and many a mayde,/ And many a wydwe

Question 8

Role of women

Answer 8

Deceite, wepyng, spynnyng
I weep algate, and made sory cheere, As wyves mooten
Pardee, we wommen konne no thyng hele
She dorste telle it to no man
Swere and lyen as a womman kan

Question 9

Virginity

Answer 9

Virginitee is greet perfeccion

Question 10

Sexual references x 4

Answer 10

Bele chose
Fruyt of marriage
Sely instrument
In wyfhood I wol use my instrument

Question 11

Knowledge

Answer 11

I woot as wel as ye, it is no drede

Sith a man is more resonable/ Than womman is, ye moste been suffrable

Question 12

Love and fire

Answer 12

The moore it brenneth, the moore it hath desir

Question 13

Lust and desire

Answer 13

I shal fulfille youre worldlly appetit

I trowe I loved him best

Question 14

Violence

Answer 14

By verray force, he rafte hire maydenhed
He smoot me once on the ear
He hadde me bete on every bone

Question 15

Marcotte

Answer 15

In Medieval times, women were associated with the body and the senses, whereas men were associated with the mind and power