Proto-Feminist Chaucer: The Rivalry Between the Wife of Bath and the Clerk
This essay explores whether Geoffrey Chaucer should be considered a proto-feminist, focused primarily on “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” and “The Clerk’s Prologue and Tale”. The Wife of Bath, as this essay states, can arguably be considered a feminist character, based on modern definitions of feminism. However, the Clerk, and his Tale, are intrinsically opposed to the Wife of Bath, and can certainly not be considered a feminist text. This essay examines this juxtaposition between the Wife of Bath and the Clerk, and argues that the connection between these characters, and their Tales, is intentional on behalf of Chaucer, as a means to further his agenda to raise social awareness of the struggles of women in his society. This intentionality by Chaucer is also discussed, and is supported by evidence in the texts, but also evidence from other sources, such as his social position and personal experiences, both professionally and otherwise. Furthermore, a key component of the argument of his intentionality is his “Envoy de Chaucer”, a section of “The Clerk’s Tale”, in which Chaucer denounces the Clerk and his message about women, in favor of the Wife of Bath and her ideas on shared governance. This essay also addresses some of the criticism of the idea of Chaucer as a feminist, both directly, and the argument that the Wife of Bath, and Chaucer’s envoy is supposed to be satire and entirely ironic. Based on the evidence and evaluations of Chaucer’s intentionality behind these characters and their Tales, it becomes clear that Chaucer should indeed be considered a proto-feminist based not only on his words, but also on the simple fact that through his works he has made people consider women’s position in society, from the day The Canterbury Tales was published, to our modern post-feminist world.
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