Feminist Discursivity in the Wife of Bath’sPrologue and Tale

• Main Authors: Hsiao-Jung Chen, 陳筱蓉
• Other Authors: Kuan-Jung Cheng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/42917516206967684609

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 外國語文學系所 === 94 === In “the Wife of Bath,” Chaucer exhibits how a medieval woman behaves against her husbands’ domination: The Wife of Bath speaks in company what she wants and her carnal desires, and boldly competes with male authority. Therefore, what I would like to engage in is that living in the Middle Ages, how does a woman strive for her inner desires and against male authority? In this thesis, I am going to read the text in the light of the symbolic/semiotic, jouissance, and mimicry proposed by Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray to prove whether Chaucer is a pioneer of feminism or not. Then, I would trace back to the contemporary cultural background to re-read the text after proving “the Wife of Bath” is participating the modern feminism. By means of negotiation in New Historicism, the text would contain a mobilizing energy between aesthetic practices and social practices－the aesthetic and social practices stimulate and penetrate each other. Finally, I would discuss broadly the matrimonial relationship in other tales to make a comparison with the Wife’s. Chaucer in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale invents such a distinctive and extraordinary woman as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s cite “the Wife of Bath’s fictional words as an instance of authentic female speech and takes her as a direct spoken-woman for the perspective proto-feminism of Chaucer.”