I do not understand why some people think all tales come from these in Canterbury. I think a lot of them are very strange, about weird people who go around seducing each other's wives and daughters and beating each other. It seemed to me to be lots of gossiping and rumor spreading, with bits of life lessons sprinkled in. I quite liked the Wife of Bath's tale, because with an element of magic to it it seemed more story like, more of a legend, and less gossip. She told it with intent to teach a lesson, and to tell someone something she's learned over her years. As opposed to a lot of the characters who seemed to want to get back at each other, like the Friar and the Summoner, or the Reeve.
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I quite enjoyed that story as well because of the element of magic. I agree that the legend aspect of it makes it more interesting and enjoyable than a tale of gossip. I would love to read more stories like this!
ReplyDeleteThe Wife of Bath's Tale did seem magical and I love how you brought that up. The other stories were basically like gossip, like a group of little old ladies huddled around in their knitting circles discussing how it was Ethel's fault her husband kicked the bucket so she could claim the life insurance. Sometimes you have to make the story interesting- putting an element of magic into it- to make you feel like it's not just some other story you could have read somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteHi Goergia~
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the Wife of Bath's story was better than the rest. The idea of including the magic made the story seem more like and old fable that is notorious for teaching us lessons and less like some scandalous story all about rumors. I think in the end, the Wife of Bath's story does a good job of telling us the moral-- women should be treated as equals to men.
Georgia I sooooooooo agree with you! I do believe a lot of the morals that were represented in the Canterbury Tales appear in modern text but I don't belive that all stories stem form this. I mean who uses magic these days to make themselves younger?
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