The Rhetoric of Rape and the Politics of Gender in the<i>Wife of Bath's Tale</i>and the<i>1382 Statute of Rapes</i>

Edwards, Suzanne M.

doi:10.1179/104125711x12864610741666

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…As in the preceding pastourelle, the enormity and cyclicality of the Anglo-French conflict and its ensuing devastation is prominently foregrounded. Madoulz spends much of the pastourelle trying to determine the identity of the raiders: was it the Navarrese (11), he asks his son, or perhaps the Flemish, or else the French (26), or perhaps the Boulonais ( 27)? His son's response that the raiders cried 'Saint George' (refrain) reveals their English identity to the reader, as this was the battle cry of English forces already in the late eleventh century and was particularly associated with Edward III and his war campaigns.…”

Section: Figuring Shepherds As Their Sheepmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…She connects these to a contemporary legal practice that aided in dismissing sexual assault cases in court by having the woman claim retroactive consent in court to exonerate her attacker due to social pressures. 26 Maret's comparison of herself to a mauled sheep thus points not just to Robin's inefficacy as a shepherd, but to his being the wolf in the story all along.…”

Section: The Silence Of the Lambsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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2 Forms against war

Strakhov

2024

Literatures of the Hundred Years War

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In one of Eustache Deschamps's ballades, En une grant fourest et lée (c.1380), the speaker, riding on horseback through the forest, comes across a group of frightened barnyard animals huddled in an enclosed space as wolves, foxes and other carnivorous forest animals prowl around them. The predators demand money as they encircle the livestock, and the barnyard animals beg for mercy. The ewe says she has been shorn four times that year (10-12), implying she has no more wool to offer at this time. 2 The sow says that she will be forced to beg in the streets along with her piglets, as she has no merchandise left to sell, to which the wolf responds that she can sell her hide (25-9). Deploying the tropes of animal husbandry, this beast allegory critiques exploitation of the rural poor by wealthy administrative elites. 3 Cornered by menacing predators, the terrified animals lend pathos to Deschamps's critique of class warfare. The gendered quality of this beast allegory, however, and its intimations of sexual violence, raise questions regarding the spectacularity of pain, both female and animal.Deschamps's lexical choice of brebis [ewe] and truie [sow] underline that the animals foregrounded in this poem are female. They are also represented in gendered attitudes of subjection: the ewe 's'est agenoillée' [knelt down] (9) and speaks 'comme coye' [peaceably] (10), while the sow is 'desesperée' [in despair] (25), in a characterisation that recalls the Argive widows weeping on their knees in the road before Theseus at the opening of Geoffrey Chaucer's Knight 's Tale (c.1380). Their gendering introduces an extra dimension to Deschamps's critique. The overshearing of this female sheep now intimates sexual assault of her body. That sense is heightened in the

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Section: Figuring Shepherds As Their Sheepmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Silence Of the Lambsmentioning

confidence: 99%

2 Forms against war

Strakhov

2024

Literatures of the Hundred Years War

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Needy Knights And Wealthy Widows: The Encounters Of John Cornewall and Lettice Kirriel, 1378–1382

Ormrod¹

2012

The Medieval Python

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Contracts, Activist Feminism, and the Wife of Bath's Tale

Lipton¹

2019

The Chaucer Review

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In contrast to an enduring association of the law with hegemonic power, the Wife of Bath's Tale demonstrates the potential for legal practices to facilitate change, especially through tactical feminist coalition building. The tale does not promote the retributive model of justice associated with King Arthur's court, but embraces a vision of law, associated with the Queen and her female allies, that promotes social change through reeducation. Although elsewhere Chaucerian women are disempowered or objectified by the law, the tale's series of interlocking contracts empowers female agency rather than objectifying women. The shifting voices and audiences at the end present the contract as a tactic, not as a final solution to the precarity of women's safety or marital happiness. The lack of justice at the end of the tale—where a rapist is rewarded with a wife both faithful and fair—is a call to activism, not a vision of equity achieved.

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The Rhetoric of Rape and the Politics of Gender in theWife of Bath's Taleand the1382 Statute of Rapes

Cited by 3 publications

References 21 publications

2 Forms against war

2 Forms against war

Needy Knights And Wealthy Widows: The Encounters Of John Cornewall and Lettice Kirriel, 1378–1382

Contracts, Activist Feminism, and the Wife of Bath's Tale

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