"General Prologue" (adapted from a guide by Richard Kroll)
1. What is the general purpose of such a prologue?
2. What or who are we presented with, and in what order?
3. The pilgrims represent a variety of human types. How would you group them?
4. Who presents the tale? Is the relation between `poet' and `narrator' the same or different from that in Beowulf?
5. What does the setting do for the rest of the tales?
(a) What is the putative purpose or motive for the journey?
(b) How does the season amplify or ironize that motive?
6. What is the relationship between fertility and religion?
7. With respect to the narrator, what is he like? (lines 19-42; 717-48)
(a) How does he tend to see the other pilgrims?
(b) How is each description ordered? What details does the narrator tend to notice?
8. What is the relationship of the Host to the journey; to the pilgrims?
9. Which pilgrims are the most appealing figures? Which the least? Why?
Wife of Bath's Tale (adapted from a guide by Florence Boos)
1. What do we already know about the Wife of Bath from the Prologue? Why do you think Chaucer may emphasize these particular details?
2. The Wife's opening remarks are an elaborate answer to the exposition of St Jerome's "Against Jovinianus". a misogynist and anti-marital tract (and the book to which probably her husband no. 5 refers in his boring speeches). To what extent does she make a good case for herself? For sexual enjoyment? Are there arguments she could make but doesn't?
3. Is the Wife as unconventional as her defensiveness would suggest? Which aspects of her life are orthodox and which less so?
4. What is the effect of her narration of her life with the five husbands? Is there a progression in her experiences? Is she accurate in claiming authority in describing the woes of marriage?
5. Why is the book from which Jenkin keeps on quoting the cause of their argument? The Wife makes an argument that all books are essentially biased against women - why?
6. At the end, do you feel more or less sympathy with her? On what grounds is her reconciliation with Jenkin supposedly based? Is she in fact eager to dominate him?
7. What effect is created by the interruptions of the Pardoner, Friar, and Summoner?
8. What relation does her tale bear to her preoccupations in her prologue? Is it in fact a tale of female mastery and domination? What does the old woman of the tale desire? What does the tale seem to reveal about the Wife's own fantasy life?
9. What effect is created by the Wife's repeated intrusion as a narrator in her own tale? Her insertion of anti-feminist jokes and deprecating views on women?
10. There are essentially two schools of interpreting the Wife of Bath: either she is meant to represent the folly and weakness of women or she is a great proto-feminist character. Which one do you side with and why?
11. If this tale were to be written today, what are some ways in which it might need to be changed for a modern audience?