By Preeve which that is Demonstratif (9)
Even in the first part of her Prologue, the Wife is willing to reject the
scholastic method in favour of "experience" when the former seems to point
to absurd conclusions:
Glose whoso wole, and seye bothe up and doun,
That they were maked for purgacioun
Of uryne, and oure bothe thynges smale
Were eek to know a femele from a male,
And for noon oother cause - say ye no?
The experience woot wel it is noght so. (119-124)
The rejection of "auctoritee" in favour of "experience" is more marked in
the latter part of her Prologue, after the Pardoner has invited the Wife to
"teche us yonge men of youre praktike" (187). In shouting down her
husbands, the Wife also shouts down the auctoritees which she puts into
their mouths. Indeed, the Prologue culminates literally in the destruction
of auctoritee, for she makes her fifth husband burn his book (816).
In "The Wife of Bath's Tale" the hag lectures her husband in bed with
recourse to all the "auctors", but here again there is a move away from
"auctoritee" towards "experience", as the hag appeals to accepted
contemporary behaviour rather than to models from antiquity:
Now sire, of elde ye repreeve me;
And certes, sire, thogh noon auctoritee
Were in no book, ye gentils of honour
Seyn that men sholde an oold wight doon favour,
And clepe hym fader, for your gentillesse;
And auctors shal I finden, as I gesse. (1207-1212).
Doctor Elasticus.
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