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Canterbury Tales

This essay compares the conceptions of marriage and love in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Prologue" and "The Franklin's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales. The problem of love seems to be timeless in its difficulties. There are many ideas and opinions concerning this delicate subject, which always is popular, along with its ability to frustrate and perplex the human animal.

During the time of Chaucer, females such as the Wife of Bath were asserting their rights against the forces of male chauvinism. Apparently, the battle of the sexes for supremacy is everlasting in its intensity and has always been fought. Consequently, we have both male and female chauvinists, and they appear in Chaucer's works. They make for interesting reading. For certainly, this is a subject that is never dull or boring. Perhaps it is the most important war ever engaged in by humanity.

The Wife of Bath certainly has the qualifications to be an expert on marriage due to the fact that she has been married five times. Basically, she is the Fool of the company in the

traditional manner in which everyday facts are turned topsy-turvy. If practice makes perfect, then the Wife of Bath has had considerable training on the subject of matrimony. And so, the "Prologue" commences: "Experience, though noon auctoritee/Weeere in this world, were right y-nough to me/To I speak of wo that is in marriage;/For, lordinges, sith I twelf yeer was of age,/Thonked be God that is eterne on lyve,/Housbondes at chirche-dore I have had fyve;/For I so ofte have y-wedded be;/And alle were worthy men in hir degree." (Lines 1-8)

The Roman Church frowned upon a number of marriages. Consequently, if a person married, it was preferable to marry once and, if the spouse left this mortal sphere, never again. But it was possible to marry again; however, each marriage would put a person at a lower level of perfection. Thus, the Wife of Bath is at the lowest st...

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Canterbury Tales. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 04:52, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1688072.html