Harris goes into the less than stellar history Chaucer had with rape before both Canterbury Tales were written and contextually before his wife died. Given the information on medieval penalties from the Slate article, what effect do you think it had on Chaucer’s writing women and rape within the tale?
Medieval Feminism
ENGL 361 and WGST 322 | Spring 2020 | Dr. Myra Seaman
When considering how Chaucer’s personal life influenced his writing on women and r*pe within the tale, one of the Harris articles talks about how the tale “is the one that most prominently features r*pe law.” Likely someone who has been accused of r*pe and paid the woman a settlement has knowledge of r*pe law at the time. She also mentions how “the tale points to Chaucer’s involvement in the Chaumpaigne case by encouraging readers to empathize with its rapist-protagonist…” Reading the tale, this definitely rings true. When telling the tell, the Wife of Bath states that “Woe was this knight, and sorrowfully he sighs;” trying to push the reader to see that the knight is regretful and sad, as Harris mentions in her article. The ending of the tale implies that the knight earned his happy ending when he gives the women agency, also implying that he has evolved and where in the beginning he did not believe in agency of women because he forced himself on one, now he is a better man. Again, Chaucer as someone who is likely trying to push the reader to see the knight as good, would emphasize the good qualities of the knight and demonstrate some kind of transformation.
Chaucer’s history of r*pe is revealed within Harris’s article, which, first, is intriguing to me because I don’t know if this is commonly known among scholars due to me never have learned this in any medieval or early modern English courses. Anyways, given this aspect of his past, Chaucer’s “forced sex” with the young girl definitely affects the tale (Harris 2). The young girl who the knight r*pes is never heard from again, and this can symbolize how easy it was in Chaucer’s time to end mention of a sexual assault. While the Queen does argue that he should be beheaded, she allows him to “earn” his freedom. This can serve as a symbol of many men having a way out of facing legal action, by buying their way out of and compensating a woman for their trauma and lowering of societal status, due to losing her “maidenhead.” The role of the Queen in Chaucer’s tale is an illusion to the medieval loop-hole of buying-out victims.
I believe Chaucer’s experience with r*ape (as he was a r*pist himself) had a pretty large effect on the story. I agree with the previous comments stating that Chaucer writes the story in a way that builds empathy for the knight. He does so by making the knight go on a year long journey to find an answer that generalizes women and their wants. The search feels meaningless and is not a fair punishment for what he deserved. Yet, this soft punishment is supposed to be viewed as a difficult journey, when in reality, it is not. The fact that Chaucer decided to give the freedom of judgement of the knight to the women of court instead of the victim herself was rather interesting to me. He again, generalizes women believing that they all have the best interest for each other and that they speak for one another. Yet, their punishment was lenient to the r*pist, which appears to be typical of sexual assault cases during this time. Although it seems that Chaucer attempts to give agency to women through this story, it does not. Women, as always, are forced to remain silent by men.
I think that Chaucer’s own experience with r*pe may have influenced the way in which he wrote the Wife’s tale. I think he used it as an allegory for his own experience and the fact that he was never found guilty of r*pe. He was believed to have paid the woman off to get her to back down. This was a means of getting her to keep quiet and not share her story. The girl who was abused in the story never got to share what happened to her because we never hear any dialect from her. In this way, Chaucer silenced her the same way he silenced the woman who accused him of r*pe. This showcases the fact that he didn’t want either woman to talk about what happened because it would ruin his life and ruin the knight’s life in the story.