If you’ve been reading this article, you’ve probably heard about Geoffrey Chaucer’s most famous character, the wife of Bath. Perhaps you studied her at her school. In the night skies of medieval literature, Alison – wife of Bath – is the only star many people can name her in. She is, of course, one of the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales. Of all the characters in the story, she is the most important one. She is flawed and her resourceful woman, telling a complex and troubling tale of rape and redemption (sort of) before entertaining her fellow pilgrims with her lengthy prologue. of her own life reveals her story. .
Marion Turner’s brilliant new “biography” of Allison shows how radical she was at the time and explains why she became popular throughout the ages and in new cultural contexts. She captivated Shakespeare, Dryden, Pope and Voltaire and continues to be reimagined in modern times by communist Poland and contemporary black writers. In each context, she means something different.
Turner argues that before Chaucer’s portrayal of his wife, there was no place in the European literary tradition for a fully fleshed-out female character “neither a beautiful victim nor a terrifying stereotype”. In fact, this is still the case with many Hollywood movies today. What made her radical in her time still makes her radical today. When Turner argued and saw Zaddy Smith’s play Willesden’s Wife, based on Chaucer’s Allison, I was amazed to see an ordinary middle-aged woman on stage talking freely about her. I am still impressed with how amazing it is. life and sexual experiences.
The first part of Turner’s “biography” places Alison in her medieval world, juxtaposing her with real-life literary portraits of women. Here are the lives of pilgrims, widows, businesswomen and storytellers. Allison “makes sense as a character” in the late 14th century, when “the Black Death ushered in a new era of women’s possibilities.” Aspects of her life may seem strange to modern readers. For example, she has been married five times. However, these parts of her begin to feel more real when compared to historical examples of medieval serial widows, including Chaucer’s granddaughter, Alice Chaucer.
As Turner looks from Chaucer’s wife to Alison’s afterlife centuries away, we see just how complicated Chaucer’s wife and her story are. Alison tells the story of a rapist who is rewarded with a hot young wife after being forced to empathize with a woman’s experience.
