Chaucer's gender‐oriented philosophy in The Canterbury Tales

Abstract

The manipulation of gender in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is utterly opaque. While "The Knight's Tale" potentially entices readers to think that Chaucer defines a woman regarding her relationship to man, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" suggests that the poet views a woman as an independent figure whose identity has nothing to do with man. This apparently controversial portrait of gender causes some critics to read Chaucer as a pro-woman individual; simultaneously, it inspires other critics to view the poet as anti-feminist. Such debate may cause readers to misjudge Chaucer's multifaceted approach towards gender as well as other hypersensitive topics, thus adding to the atmosphere of complexity and lack of clarity that dominates The Tales.Accordingly, this paper revisits Chaucer's gender-oriented philosophy in The Tales sieving what is conjectured by the poem's critics from what is said by the poet himself regarding gender. The paper concludes that Chaucer has never had the choice to overtly be or not to be the friend of woman but has always adopted a fence-sitting strategy concerning the question of gender due to his sociopolitical status.The paper confirms that Chaucer's viewpoint of women is neither feminist nor anti-feminist but a realistic amalgamation that mirrors the opaque gender culture of England in the fourteenth century.

A Nominalist Reading of the Ending of Malory’s Morte Darthur: Ockham’s Notion of the Metaphysical Freedom of the Will and Earthly Emotions

“…Similarly, in the Canterbury Tales (1400) Chaucer presents us with different examples of knights who defy chivalric values. Commenting on the failure of chivalry in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Zuraikat (2023a) contends that acts of violence in "The Wife of Bath's Tale", rape as an example, suggest a violation of the chivalric and aristocratic code of conduct. Significantly, the choice of the Morte as an example of nominalist texts is informed by the fact that that Malory is neither purely moralising as Gower in his Confessio Amantis nor satirizing as Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales.…”