1. What is a fabula, and in what sense is 'the loathly lady' theme one? (you can google this one...)
2. What does Carter (2003) have to say about Chaucer's 'feminism'? In what sense is the Wyfe of Bath's Tale and in what is it not 'feminist'?
3. What according to Hahn (1995) are some critical issues around The Wedding of Sir Gawain...?
4. What does Hahn identify as its Celtic influences?
5. How do each of the three versions I've given you differ, especially in relation to the choice the knight/king must make?
Shotgun first post!
ReplyDeleteQ1: a fabula is of course a tale with many versions spread out across perhaps many cultures or tribes. The loathly lady is a concept that shows up a great deal in Middle English/Arthurian tales, though it originates in Celtic mythology. There is of course the Chaucer's Canterbury Tales version, and that of Sir Gawain - although my first introduction to the story was a radio play where Sir Kei, Arthur's adopted brother, was the one obliged to marry the loathly lady. Sir Kei being Sir Kei, he was a little more vocal on the matter of his refusal...
Hi Group;
ReplyDeleteRegarding Q3… I had summarized the Critical Reader, p.100.
The surviving manuscript in a sixteenth-century “recoded ‘in a negligent hand’, ‘very carelessly written’” (Hahn, 1995, p.100).
e.g.1 The formation of i and y is often indistinguishable (Hahn, 1995).
e.g.2.“Capitalization and punctuation are almost entirely editorial” (Hahn, 1995, p.100).
e.g.3. Although the poem consists of six lines stanzas, the surviving manuscript lacks lots of individual lines and it is cause of the irregular and uneven (Hahn, 1995).
Kimiko
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ReplyDeleteHi guys
ReplyDeleteI’ll attempt Q2, with reference to Susan Carter’s (2003) article. Chaucer’s feminism in the Wife of Bath includes:
1. Controversial ideas on male/female roles (p. 81).
2. Women who are freed from their traditional role (p. 81).
3. The altering of gender roles (p.82).
4. A concern with “gender power imbalance” rather than in kingly qualities (p. 86).
5. A loathly lady with “an active sexuality” (p. 91) which proposes that all women are the same (p. 91).
Examples of how this work is not feminist (women not conforming to the ideal of woman at the time) include:
1. More choices are given to maids than in usual stories of knights and ladies, that is - more than the usual “rescued and raped” (p. 86) versions.
2. The wife has the intellect, not the knight. Carter (2003) describes the knight as “no great thinker” (p. 90) and a “dimwit” (p. 90).
3. Women obtain authority in that patriarchy is overturned, for example, at court and it is not restored (p. 86, 87).
4. The wife selects her man (p.87) and it is the knight who must surrender himself in “matrimony” (p. 88) not the woman, with the woman being the decision maker (p. 90) not the man.
5. The “humiliating role of sex object” (p. 89) lies with the man instead of the woman, with the submission being placed with the man (p. 87).
6. Women play the accepted role of men. For example, the knights at court are “in the shadows off the edge of the narrative, the spot usually reserved for the ladies” (p. 87). This also applies to the king once he hands authority over to the queen (p. 86).
7. The Wife of Bath is a hag and not the usual beautiful woman, that is, she is a loathly lady (p. 82-83) who transforms only after she gets what she wants. At first she is “not the romanticized woman projected by male desire” (p. 84).
Examples of how this work is feminist include:
1. Women have “queynte fantasye” (p. 91) which will lead them astray with men.
2. Women are perceived to have an affinity to nature, the forest (p. 83).
3. Women can be victims of rape and male domination. The maid is raped by a sexual predator who stalks her (p. 86).
Hi guys
ReplyDeleteAttempting Q4 as follows.
“Arthurian” relates to the legend of King Arthur and his Round Table which are of Celtic origin.
Thus Hahn (1995) considers ‘The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle’ has roots in “Arthurian narratives” (p.98, no. top right).
These are Chretien de Troyes’s work ‘Perceval’ and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s work ‘Parzival’.
These works include “an ugly hag” (p. 98). The ugly hag motif being Celtic.
Hi guys
ReplyDeleteAttempting Q5 as follows.
The differences regarding the choices the knight/king makes are:
--The Wife of Bath
The knight must choose out of two options the loathly lady gives him:
Option 1: She stays old and unattractive and will be a “true, humble wife” (Critical Reader, p. 72) or
Option 2: She will be young and beautiful and courted by all and sundry (Critical Reader, p.72).
This comedy about gender relations (P. Mountfort, Lecture, 31.3.09) is a humorous piece about what kind of woman the knight wants for his future wife. This deals with gender issues within marriage, that is, “the dynamics of heterosexual commerce: the manipulation of power ratios by desire, pleasure, and frustration” (Carter, 2003, p. 84). The outcome of the knight’s choice is that “phallic power” (Carter, 2003, p. 87) is handed over to him. Unlike the stories below, he enters his predicament because of the crime of rape.
--The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
King Arthur has a choice that Ragnelle gives him.
Option 1: He loses his head (Critical Reader, p. 74) or
Option 2: She marries a knight of her choosing (Critical Reader, p. 74).
This poem (Hahn, 1995, p. 99) deals with chivalric matters (Hahn 1995, p. 99), not gender issues in marriage. There are two lots of choices – that made by the king and that by the knight. The king chooses to put Ragnelle’s proposition to Gawain (Critical Reader, p. 74). The knight chooses to accept his fate “not because he has committed the crime of rape” (Power Point Slides – no. 26), but because he is the king’s friend, and it is his “duty” (Critical Reader, p. 76) to save the king’s life. A difference in this story is that Ragnelle has chosen her knight outright and it is not just a ‘chance’ meeting.
--King Henry
The king is not given clear cut choices by the “grisly ghost” (Critical Reader, p. 80). She tells him to perform certain tasks and to sleep with her (Critical Reader, p. 80). The next morning he awakens to find her beautiful (Critical Reader, p. 80).
This ballad (Carter, 2003, p. 85) deals with a humorous parallel between qualities required for courting – “A store of gold, and open heart, and full of charity” (Critical Reader, p. 80) - and the king’s encounter with a ghost. This ghost deems him a “courteous knight” (Critical Reader p. 80) for fully doing her bidding. King Henry sleeps with her due to his ‘kingly qualities’, not because he has committed a crime of rape.
Unlike the two stories above, King Henry is not threatened with reprisal should he choose to ignore her bidding. Also, whereas the loathly lady is met in the forest and is a female with shape-shifting abilities in the stories above, here she is a ghost with transformation abilities and is encountered in a “haunted hall” (Critical Reader, p. 80).
Hi, Neo-Walt:
ReplyDeleteRegarding Q2… I had summarized Carter’s (2003) essay as the following:
About Chaucer’s ‘feminism’, Carter (2003, p.92) notes that “I agree that the effect of hag’s quasi-divine power negates her total surrender to her man when she is having fun with him; but I agree that the reciprocation of role play here, the destabilization of personal power, make the bedroom joy more ‘parfit’”.
Chaucer’s presentations of gender role are different from most canonical English literature (Carter, 2003). Chaucer is more interested in the gender role than in the issues of kinship that lie at the most loathly lady stories (Carter, 2003). Then, Carter (2003, p.92) admits that Chaucer reveals “the workings of gender codes by dismantling them the loathly lady”.
Fast, Chaucer transposes the knight’s hunt to the rape (Carter, 2003). Although the act is inappropriate for true hero, this allows Chaucer to present Wife’s criticism of the reality of knights and maidens and her radical ideas on gender theory (Carter, 2003). Arthur’s court, which the knight has been surrendered, is subverted by Wife’s narration (Carter, 2003). The court is represented by women’s demand (Carter, 2003). Then women oppress and reeducate the knight (Carter, 2003). It seems that Chaucer presents here that “the female sovereignty may bring happiness” (Carter, 2003, p.91). Moreover, the loathly lady has “an active sexuality” that is free from “the Christian yoke of heterosexual relations and of authorial censure” (Carter, 2003, p.91) as the counter of the women which are presented in most canonical literature (Carter, 2003). However, the closure of Chaucer’s story is consistent with other loathly lady stories (Carter, 2003).
The closure attests that Chaucer is not a real ‘feminist’. The loathly lady offers the knight ultimate jurisdiction (Carter, 2003). The knight obtains his bliss (Carter, 2003). Male fulfillment brings the same happy ending in Chaucer’s story as it does in other loathly lady stories (Carter, 2003). Then, the Wife secures female sovereignty in the private bed-room (Carter, 2003). Carter (2003) claims that this re-reciprocation of gender role is Chaucer’s gendered confusions and the destabilization of personal power. Carter (2003) concludes that Chaucer only presents the moral, which hove to be fulfilled after the collapse of gender roles, and the acceptance of ambivalence.
Kimiko
Hi, Neo-Walt:
ReplyDeleteRegarding Q4… Thank you for your useful information. I’ll research about it.
Kimiko
Hi,everyone,I want to say something about Q1 here.
ReplyDeleteFirst,my understanding of fabula bases on what is given in the powerpoint slides. It is " Fabula = a fable or tale. In narratology, it refers to the basic events of a tale that can be retold in a variety of ways."
What's more, I get some information about fabula from the website "wikipedia" as following:
1.Fabula is a term originating in Russian Formalism and employed in narratology that describe narrative construction.
2.Fabula is the order of retelling events. They were first used in this sense by Vladimir Propp and Shklovsky.
3.The fabula of a text is the raw order in which events occurred.
4.The fabula consists of a series of logically and chronologically related events that are
caused or experienced by characters in a story world. A story is a fabula that is looked at from a certain angle. A narrative text is an expression of the story in language signs.
Second,according to the powerpoint slides,"The ‘loathly lady’ fabula appears to be of Celtic origin, as it is found in Irish myth as a test a king must face before he can claim the sovereignty of the land". "Theme of the ‘loathly lady’ was part of a common fabula in the middle ages." We can see that from a historical and cultural perspective, The themes of kingship (encompassing all noble leadership) and counsel (focusing on the role of the Loathly Lady as advisor) are the mainstay of that period.
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteI got orphaned, can I join your group? Thanks! (my postings for the first lot is in Group 2 blog)
Trying to crack Q4. Adding to what neo-walt already said regarding Celtic influences, Hahn (1995) refers to the earliest Old Irish versions that 'the reward for the hero's offering his favour or making the right choice is kingship or political dominance.' (p.98) Sir Gawain honours his duty to serve and save his king's life and the king, in turn, is able to rule the land.
According to Hinds & McColman (2005), there was a goddess in shape of a queen, who was the most sublime personification of 'Sovereignty' in the history of Ireland. 'Sovereignty' was the freedom of the land and the source of the king's right/authority to rule. (p.61) As Pagan Celts understood that the authority and power came from the land (Hinds & McColman, 2005), the union between land and the worthy ruler was essential. As kings came and went, this goddess fulfilled Sovereignty's function and united again and again with successive kings. I think that corresponds to the powerpoint where "a lady wearing a golden crown..... pours a draught into a golden cup which she hands to each successive king of Ireland."
And as Karen pointed out, we saw in the powerpoint that the loathly lady fabula is found in Irish myth as a test a king must face before he can claim the Sovereignty of the land.
Does this make sense of what Hahn identifies as its Celtic influences?
Hinds, K. & McColman, C. (2005).
Magic of the Celtic Gods and Goddesses: A Guide to Their Spiritual ... - Google Books Result Retrieved from
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=RANlKSykYM0C&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=king,+hag,+celtic,+sovereign&source=bl&ots=aKti5Ash1A&sig=VbBckKY6j-2bmeIg-rd5wLIKaAE&hl=en&ei=EvjTSdX4IZGusQOUusyxCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8
Hi Akiko:
ReplyDeleteRegarding Q4…
Thank you for your useful information.
Mm…
In fact, I have no time to research about Q4 because I have to do the other assignments…
I’d like to research about it during this holiday based on the research of Neo-Walt’s previous posting and your current posting.
Kimiko
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi, guys. Found a Youtube clip of Steeleye Span performing 'King Henry'.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lUXl1jDRiw
enjoy(?!)
Q5. How do each of the three versions differ, especially in relation to the choice the knight/king must make?
ReplyDeleteThe choice the knight had to make in 'The Wife of Bath'
111) 'I grant thee life, if thou canst tell me....' OR 'Beware, and keep thy neck-bone from iron' (p.66)
222) ugly but humble wife OR beautiful but carefree wife
the knight in 'The Wife of Bath' wallows in distress, and hid himself like an owl all day (p.69).
The choice the king/Gawain had to make in 'The Wedding.....'
111) (king) 'I will promise you your life' OR 'Otherwise, you lose your head' (p.11)
222) (Gawain) ugly by night OR ugly by day
Gawain doesn't seem to express his repulsion but there is a part of manuscript missing.
(Full text of 'The Wedding of Sir Gawain.......' http://www.lone-star.net/mall/literature/gawain.htm )
The choice King Henry had to make in the ballad
111) I don't think he had a choice
Oh God forbid, says King Henry, that ever the like betide, should stretch down by my side. (p.80)
All three knights honoured their words (in the end) and upheld the value of elite knighthood.
But I think King Henry's choice doesn't have direct connection to 'the wise governance' (p.72) or sovereign.
p.s. The powerpoint slide No.22 'Gawain's choice, p.9' is a text from 'The Wife of Bath's Tale' isn't it? not 'The Wedding of Sir Gawain...'.
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteI want to give some supplement on Q5 here.
In my point of view, the differeces of the three versions are as follows:
Firstly,from the perspective of content.
1.In "The wife of Bath's Tale",Chaucer emphasized more on the gender role than the other two versions.
2. In "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle",it's "unlike in Chaucer, Gawain suffers her attentions not because he has committed the crime of rape, but because he nobly serves his king (Arthur)"(slides).Therefore, it seems to emphasize more on the tribute of a knight' spirit.
3. In "King Henry", it perefer to emphasize the spirit of the king.
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteI want to give my stand about the Q2 here.
Firstly,agreeing with what Kimiko said about Q2,
I think what dose Cater(2003)have to say about Chaucer's "feminism" is the allegorical motif-"gender role destabilization".(Cater,2003)
Secondly,the "feminism" embodied in Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale".
Through Cater's analyzing,we can see that the "feminism" is embodied everywhere in Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale".However,what most impressed me are mainly from three aspects:
1.The court.According to carter, "For the purposes of this tale, the court is represented by what women want; the bedchamber in which a husband is rendered as subservient as a lover subsumes the usual representation of the court, its hall, and Round Table, as the seat of masculine power. As well as creating a sense of authentic feminine subjectivity in the Wife’s
assessment of the Arthurian court, her regendering is sympathetic to the
Sovranty Hag’s ultimate jurisdiction over the male court."
evidence1. In generic tales of the loathly lady,the court represents the seat of partriarchal government, however, Chaucer allows the hag to "oppress and reeducate the errant knight" in the court,and "Her cynicism goes so far as to displace the males from the central position and to promote instead the women of the court"(Carter 2003)
evidence2. "When Arthur relinquishes the matter to his queen,his surrender is complete, and she is authorized to take over the king’s power as ultimate judge."
evidence3. "Even in the closure of the tale, patriarchy is not restored to the court"
2. the forest.
evidence such as "When the “olde wyf” rises to prohibit the knight from the forest, she is acting according to earlier models of loathly lady tales, in which the forest shows its feminine and magical attributes as it excludes the males from its precincts"(cater 2003)
3."The unequal power balance between the hag who can change shape and the knight who remains nameless is well-established by this stage"(Carter 2003)
On the other hand,when it is considered to be " not feminism", we can refer to "What is repulsive about women is inheren" in Chaucer's motif.