Chaucer's Weaving Wife

Abstract

SCHOLARLY DISCUSSION OF THE PILGRIMS in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales has been dominated by three schools of thought, specifically the historical identifications initiated by Manly, the physiognomic studies of Curry, and the idea of medieval stereotypes. Yet the possibility that Chaucer may have included an archetype among his pilgrims has not been generally explored or recognized. Alisoun, the Wife of Bath, is such a motif figure; her physical and moral characteristics are pervasive in folklore and reach far back in time. Many of the traits which to Manly seemed proof of her individuality-the love of travel, the tendency to overdress, and her gap teeth-can be found in tradition. To begin this analysis it is appropriate to delineate her vocation as a basis for our discussion. The Wife must be recognized as the old bawd, the standard type of go-between-already found in late classical comedy (the Dipsas of Ovid) and the only female representative of this group in all of Chaucer's works. But in almost every detail she has undergone a brilliant metamorphosis, a development which may be traced from archetype, through stereotype, and finally to the portrayal of a unique personality. Moving backward in time, we find the direct antecedent of the Wife to be La Vieille in the Roman de la Rose. That the Wife reflects certain personal characteristics of the Vieille is undisputed by scholars, but in the Roman we have also some interesting analogues to Alisoun's marital problems. La Vieille, in her youth, could have had her pick of rich men, but she preferred, instead, a ribald good-for-nothing, who exploited her and spent his time gaming and wenching: