Chaucer and Ford Critics

Chaucer and Ford Critics

1. The Wife of Bath

   • The Wife of Bath makes public the most intimate details of her married life with the same cheerful abandon / as though it were merely an amusing sidelight on feminine psychology.' - James Winny
     • This point is evident in the unashamed accounts of her escapades, as she takes great pleasure in the fact that 'I laughe whan I thinke, how pitously a-night I made hem swinke!'
   • Theophratus 'A wiseman must therefore not take a wife/it is impossible for anyone to attend both his books and his wife/matrons want many things
     • This view is supported by the Wife's actions as she 'made him brenne his book' which shows how Jankin was unable to satisfy his desire for reading his book of Wikked wives and be with her at the same time. In his way the WOB does not help herself as she is supporting misogynistic views of men by proving them right!
   • 'Those who challenge the Wife manage not to disarm the strength of her practical concord but to reveal the weakness of their own understanding.' - Mary Caruthers
   • Chaucer, as a 'fourteenth century poet of privilege,' should not be blamed for his unflattering portrayal of women - Susan K Hagen
   • 'It is the Wife's tragedy that she is both held up as an example of female vice in her prologue and then in her Tale is consumed by the conventions of romance.' Lucinda Rumsey

2. Tis Pity She's a Whore

   • 'Ford's view of society was intensely class concious.' - Clifford Leach
   • Ford's society was changing from one based on inherited status to one dominated by wealth.' Clerico
     • 'Incest is a defensive act - it emblematises the desire to conserve the purity of class membership.' - Clerico
   • 'Both Giovanni and Annabella are actually under panoptic control.' - Chen
     • Gio: Initial attempt to constrain incestuous desire, his application of God's principle in censoring himself. Also his end role as dual agent and object of God's vengeance on sexual offenders
     • Annabella: Eventual reconciliation with God by undergoing public penance and her orthodox preparation for death
     • Both: Attempt at legitimising their relationship by establishing a matrimonial bond
   • 'The classical allusions Giovanni makes suggest that he has power,' - Hogan
   • Sam Wannamaker Theatre production review:
     • If ever a play was made for the stage of the Sam Wannamaker Playhouse - This intimate, candlelit enclave of Shakespeare's Globe - it has to be Ford's dark and dangerous masterpiece. This place of shadows, flickering candles and hushed voices invests it with an unmistakable aura of evil.'
     • The pair roll around in their four-poster bed, stark naked, for several minutes. The sexual charge of the scene is so intense that it doesn't merely make voyeurs of the audience, it draws us into their unnatural passion, and thereby makes us feel sullied.'
     • (Soranzo) Braschi is a vivid, compelling, lusty presence on the stage and the way that such an obviously strong man is gradually broken down, and eventually destroyed by his lover's dark secret is what powers the production and gives it its pathos

3. Comparisons

   • While Benjamin Lewis suggests that the WOB's 'Trivialisation' of sexual matters would make it clear that the Wife would suffer in hell, at least to a medieval audience, Giovanni similarly trivialises Annabella's virginity which leads to her pregnancy and ultimately both of their deaths.
     • Giovanni - 'This pretty little toy called maidenhead.'
     • Therefore whilst Ford creates a more immediate consequence for unrestricted sexuality, Chaucer's poem implies that the wife would also suffer
   • Feminist view - Both authors take away the power of pregnancy and creation from the women in order to universally portray their sexuality and desire in a negative light.
   • Feminist view: The Wife should actually be commended for believing that her body should be free as men's - it is therefore debatable as to whether the Wife's 'weakness of lust' is really something to overcome or be inspired by
     • COMPARISON: On the other hand Annabella is a self-confessed 'uncontrolled flame' and she is much less able to control her sexual desires than the Wife, who manipulates whereas Annabella allows her heart and hormones to control her despite it meaning she commits incest
       • 'I wolde no lenger in the bed abide/til he had maad his rauson unto me.'WOB
       • Annabella has a 'fullness of blood' even according to the Doctor (Richardetto) which meant that she needed sex
   • Costume: The Wife's 'Scarlet gites' the colour connotes passion and sin contrasts starkly with the Sam Wannamaker's production of Tis Pity in which Annabella wears white throughout to connote innocence and purity.
     • This highlights the differences between the two women as Annabella is, at least initially portrayed as untainted whereas the Wife is proud of her past 'Welcome the sixthe, whan that evere he shal.'
       • However the fact that both have sexual desires and both do sin links them and begs the question as to which character is more sinful - because while they both sin Annabella is the only one who lies about it
   • Bergetto is hierarchically superior to Jankin being the son of a Lord vs Oxford Scholar yet Jankin is more aware of consequences as learns from WOB. But Bergetto is murdered so he can never realise that he cannot expect to seduce a woman using his method of 'I will but wash my face, my shit socks, and have at her i'faith.' Despite Jankin's superior intelligence both have the same weakness in that they are manipulated by women due to their arrogant ignorance and both their lives - as they once knew them - are taken away