THE WIFE OF BATH

Right from the title the intelligent reader can understand "the wife of Bath" was one of the pilgrims going to the Shrine of Thomas à Becket. It is an extract from the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The reader has two relevant pieces of information about the character: her social status and her origin. She was a married woman and she comes from Bath (town in the south-west of England). Bath was important for its tourism resource and for Jane Austin's novels. The extract is in verse and there aren't any rhyming couplets.

The poem starts with a sentence which reminds the beginning of a fairy tale (There was a ...). The narrator tells immediately us she is a business woman; this creates curiosity in the reader because women could be mothers or housewives in the Middle Ages. The woman depends on her husband or man and she had not any work, she could only work in house or educate her children. So the reader is encouraged to go on with the reading. Indeed the narrator makes the reader understand she couldn't hear well. The poet lowers the value of the woman, using an ironic language; he wants create distance between the character and the reality, making some exaggerations. We expect to read about the relationship with her husband, her housework and something of normal woman of the Middle Ages. In the second line there is a consonance (repetition of the sound "f") that underlines a negative aspect. Going on reading the narrator underlines she is a cloth maker and tells us her skills: she is the better and overcomes the weavers of Flemish countries. The repetition of the sound "s" in the first four line reinforces her ability to be a weaver. The adverb "so" underlines the ironic language of the poet, reinforcing again her cleverness.

Afterwards, the narrator describes her behaviour in Church. She wants to be the first to make offers and nobody must precede her. If someone did it, she got furious. In the first part the intelligent reader can understand she is a generous person because she gives a lot of money for the Church; but in second part the poet makes the reader reflect on her behaviour: she wants to be the centre of attention. In the seventh line with the inversion of the word order "furious" and its verb underpins her furious reaction. The reader understands she is an arrogant person and she always wants to be the first in everything she does. Then the poet describes how she wears (on Sundays). She always wants to exaggerate: she wears unusual, but expensive cloths, in order to catch the people's attention and seduce man. Indeed "her red stockings" could represent the passion/seduction. She wears too much to get oneself noticed and to hide her imperfections. She wants to look the best, attractive and popular because the church was the place where everybody comes. The sentence "I do believe" makes the reader understand that the narrator criticizes her, alerting her appearance. The repetition of the superlative "finest" (in the ninth and twelfth lines) highlights the exaggeration of the woman. From this we can understand her portray is a caricature and wants to ridicule her presumption through irony.

In the following lines the narrator describes her physical aspect, in addition to moral one. Her face is bold, handsome and florid. All these adjectives describe the attractive woman, typical aspects of the Middle Ages. The inversion of the word order ("bold" and his verb) in the fourteenth line underlines the relevant feature of personality.

After, the poet says she is a "respectable" woman, but the adjective is used with ironic; indeed he introduces us she had been married five times (in church)and had had many lovers in youth. She has always married in church because all her husbands died. The word "wife", presented in the title, ridicules her. In the eighteenth line the narrator change subject not to underline her infidelity for her husbands. The poet describes she has taken a lot of pilgrimages. She had been to the most important places of Christian religion (Jerusalem, Rome, Boulogne, St. James of Compostella and Cologne). The long list of all the places where she had been makes the reader understand that she was very experienced in pilgrimage and travelling. So the poet creates an idea of a religious person who follows Christian rules and values. The narrator reminds also she was "gap-toothed" to underline her skill in pilgrimage. Teeth widely spaced were considered a sigh of lasciviousness. He expresses this concept ironically with the sentence " if you take my meaning" in the 24^th line.

In the following lines the narrator underlines she is a good rider and she has experience in wandering and straying, but the attention of the reader is focussed on her strange cloths, in particular her hat. It is described like "a shield in size and shape" to underline again her exaggeration in clothing. The alliteration of the sound "s" makes us understand this. The reader notice that she must have fashion cloths also in a pilgrimage.

In the last three lines the narrator underlines she like laughing and joking in company. She has sexual intercourses with other people she meets. The exclamation mark at the end of the 30^th line underpins the behaviour of the woman. She is a corrupted person even if she practices religion because she doesn't regularly respect rules of Christian faith. She knows everything about love because she had had a lot of experiences in the past; so she knows also all about love affairs and makes pilgrims fall in love. The word "game" underlines that love has not any importance for "the wife of Bath"; this reminds that she has a lot of lovers and she wasn't interested to meet the true love.

The characterization may represent a woman during the Middle Ages, where Chaucer describes the woman as a lady who is everything but not a faithful woman who doesn‘t care of intellectual aspects, but only of her beauty. Geoffrey Chaucer wants to criticize ungodly women who seduce men through a parody and a caricature.