Textuality » 3A Interacting

FChiesa - The wife of Bath
by FChiesa - (2011-05-13)
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From the title I expect the poem talks about a woman who lives in Bath, an England town.

The poem describes her  physical aspect, her behavior and her job. Besides the poet tells us about about her private life and her travels. She is a business woman and she works as a cloth maker. From the poem we understand that she is very good in her job, even more than the weavers of Ypres and Ghent. She gives a lot of money for the Church, so she is a generous person. The woman wears head kerchiefs of the finest weave on Sundays. She has scarlet red stockings very tightly laced and new shoes. Her face is bold, handsome and florid. In her life she has married five times in church but she had also other loves in youth. She loves travelling: she had been to Jerusalem three times, at Rome, at Boulogne, at St. James of Compostella and Cologne, the most important places of Christian religion. She is a woman who knows all about travelling and having a relationship with someone who isn't her partner. Her teeth widely spaced is considered a sign of lasciviousness. She likes riding horses and wearing a hat on her  head. She always has a skirt round her enormous  hips and a pair of sharp spurs on her feet. In addition she knows of all cures for love.

Concerning connotation, I can notice that the poem is in free lines. The poem is written in past tense maybe because the character of the poem is dead. In the second line there is a consonance (repetition of consonant sound of "f"). In the following line we find an alliteration ( "so" "skilled"). In the seventh line the consonance ("was" "furious") reminds to something that passes. In the ninth line we find an assonance("her" "head kerchiefs") used to help the reader to memorize the poem.

In my opinion the poet wants to underline that the woman described in this poem is not like all the other women because she dedicates all her life to the job and she has a lot of relationships. In addition she is independent and is known in all her town.