By Preeve which that is Demonstratif (2)
This religious interest is nowhere more evident than in the section of The
Canterbury Tales known as the D-Group - that is, the prologues and tales of
the Wife of Bath, the Friar and the Summoner. Discussion of the D-Group has
been greatly influenced by George Lyman Kittredge's essay "Chaucer's
Discussion of Marriage", published in Modern Philology for 1911-12. That is
to say, there has been very little discussion of the D-Group, for Kittredge
did not discuss the D-Group as a group: he regarded it as part of a larger
unit, the "Marriage Group." It will be useful to summarise his argument,
though it will be familiar to many punters.
Kittredge suggested that The Canterbury Tales should be read as a kind of
Human Comedy, with each tale not only illustrating its teller's character
and opinions, but also showing the relations of the characters to one
another in the progressive action of the pilgrimage. It was not sufficient,
he thought, to consider the general appropriateness of each tale to its
teller. We should also consider to what extent the tale is determined by
the situation in which it is told - by what another pilgrim may have said or
done, or by its place in a discussion already under way.
Kittredge suggested that The Wife of Bath's Prologue begins, as it were, a
new act in the drama. The Wife, he thought, maintains a view of marriage
and sex quite opposed to that of the Christian Church. She denigrates
virginity and chastity and, contrary to the teaching of Saint Paul, believes
that the the wife should have the "soveraynetee" in marriage.
All this would scandalise the Clerk, the expert in moral theology. It would
be particularly galling in that it was expressed in theological language,
garnished with many quotations from the Bible, which was the professional
preserve of the Clerk. The Wife even makes some explicit attacks on clerks:
For trusteth wel, it is an impossible
That any clerk wol speke good of wyves . . . (688-9)
and
The clerk, whan he is oold, and may noght do
Of Venus werkes worth his olde sho,
Thanne sit he doun, and writ in his dotage
That wommen kan nat kepe hir mariage! (707-10)
The Clerk, Kittredge believed, is determined to reply to these insulting
heresies. He bides his time through the tales of the Friar and the
Summoner. It is to be noted that for Kittredge these tales had no relation
to anything in the discussion the Wife of Bath had set in motion:
"Then follows the comic interlude of the Friar and the Summoner, in the
course of which we may perhaps lose sight of the serious subject which the
Wife had set abroach - the status of husband and wife in the marriage relation."
Oriens
(To be continued)
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