“WE WOL BEEN AT OURE LARGE”
THE WIFE OF BATH THROUGH THE LENS OF FEMINISM
Keywords:
The Wife of Bath, The Canterbury Tales, contemporary feminism, female literary representationAbstract
This article revisits its author monograph, and it aims to answer the question of which of the Wife of Bath’s actions and speeches resemble contemporary feminism’s beliefs and criticism. This is because the things the character says and does break multiple stereotypes and show many similarities to some of the ideas discussed by feminism, despite the fact that she exists in misogynistic 14th century society. The goal then is to describe female representation in the character’s Prologue and Tale, as well as identify similarities between her speech and actions and feminism, taking care, however, not to commit anachronism. It is a relevant work, since it allowed the affirmation that, despite the Middle Ages’ strong sexist and patriarchal context, it is still possible to find resisting attitudes from women, even if subtle or controversial. Due to its qualitative nature, the analysis showed that the Wife of Bath aligned with the feminist movement but concomitantly went against it. By the end of the study, it was not possible to label her as either “antifeminist” or “protofeminist”, since she positions herself in both converging and diverging positions in relation to the movement’s beliefs.
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