A Maid of Christ A didactic poem, A Maid of Christ, is written by Brother Thomas of Hales in the early 13th century. The purpose of this poem is to recommend a novice nun to have Jesus Christ as her heavenly husband. At the same time, this poem conveys the values and morales of the Medieval Ages where the Catholic Church plays an important role and served to give people spiritual guidance. The four main concepts that have been encrypted into the poem are Courtly Love, Bible, Disordered Love, and, Asceticism. First of all, Courtly love is usually defined as the relationship between noble rich lady and the knight who cannot have the lady because she is married or betrothed with another man. It originates from Europe and was often passed on …show more content…
The narrator writes “There bliss and joy and song and glee Shall cure all woe and sweeten gall:” to emphasize more how heaven is absolute the perfect place to be. Disordered Love, also known as earthly love is an another concept that influenced this poem. First of all, the theory of Disordered Love is based on the idea that humans are born with emptiness, so that we will love God as he is the only one that can fill the void. However, most of the times, people do not love God first to fill the void. People often try to fill the void by loving another human being. It is not wrong to love besides God, but it is believed that Disordered love will eventually occur where something or someone that we love cannot return the love, which leads to suffering and unhappiness. In this poem, Thomas of Hales, as a narrator, critiques disordered love, "That worldly love is spasm mad, Beset by evils manifold, Deceitful, weak, false and bad”(2). He believes that the worldly love is like a temptation from the devil making people feel unstable, and it does not last forever as it is very easy to be broken. He also writes, “That love that cannot here …show more content…
Fortunate the maidens born Who can this holy state maintain But once you lose it, then forlorn, You never win it back again”(20). The gem is referred as the maidenhood, and he explains that once it is lost, we can not get it back. He also writes “It is a single precious gem, Which, best of all, bears off the prize”(21) emphasizing how important maidenhood is. He further puts more importance when he writes “Among all precious jewellery, Maidenhood has highest place”(22). He states that maidenhood is important than any jewellery. In conclusion, A Maid of Christ recommends a novice nun to have Jesus Christ as her heavenly husband as a didactic poem. As literatures are influenced by the values and beliefs of the society, Maid of Christ also reflects the values and beliefs of the society of 13th century. Thus, as the author convinces how Christ would be the perfect man, he touches upon the prominent ideas in the society: Courtly Love, Bible, Disordered Love, and Asceticism. All four ideas are related in a sentence, as they all indicate the most dominant power in the society, the Catholic Church. By reading this poem, we can see how much the society was dominated by Catholic Church, a God centered world,
A Divine Image gives human characteristics to the feelings of cruelty, jealousy, terror, and secrecy. The poem begins, "Cruelty has a human heart...
The dominance of men in the Middle Ages is unethical, irrational, and dangerous; women are given few rights and the opportunity to earn rights is non-existent. The dictates to the dominance is formed by the internal combination of man’s personal desire and religious interference. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, the combined perspectives’ on a haughty Pardoner and non-subservient wife is the stronghold of separation in moral roles. The moral roles between men and women are exemplified in the rankings of religious hierarchy for men are at the top and women towards the bottom. Even prestigious women, ones with noble connections, are subservient to men, but contradictorily have religious affiliations. The “Wife of Bath’s Tale” is a perfect example of defying man’s dominance and the “Pardoner’s Tale”, a problematic reasoning of why selfishness connects moreover to the manipulation. The frailties of religious reasoning however, will cause The Pardoner and the Wife of Bath to be separated from society’s morals.
Medieval and Renaissance literature develops the concepts of love and marriage and records the evolution of the relation between them. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Christian love clashes with courtly love, as men and women grapple with such issues as which partner should rule in marriage, the proper, acceptable role of sex in marriage, and the importance of love as a basis for a successful marriage. Works by earlier writers portray the medieval literary notion of courtly love, the sexual attraction between a chivalric knight and his lady, often the knight's lord's wife. The woman, who generally held mastery in these relationships based on physical desire and consummation, dictated the terms of the knight's duties and obligations, much like a feudal lord over a vassal. This microcosm of romance between man and woman was anchored by the macrocosm of the bonds among men and their fealty to their lord. The dominance of women and fealty to the leader in courtly love contrasts with the dominance ...
The poem “The Wife's Lament” the wife is face with being thrown into exile and he urges for he old life where her and her husband can lived in happiness. He journey come about when her husband, who is the Lord, exiles her. His family came between the two of them and inevitable caused their separation, although it isn’t clear in the poem what was the exact event that caused her banishment. The wife is then forced to relocate to the woods and there she spend her days pondering on a life of happiness with her husband. She talks about her husbands feeling towards the situation,saying ”Then I learned my Lord was like myslef”(Wife's Lament 18). She says this about her husband because they both feel betray...
Chaucer’s Prioress, Madame Eglentyne, is the first woman pilgrim mentioned in The Prologue. She is described as an elegant, sensitive lady with grey eyes, small, soft, red lips and a wide forehead. She is well-mannered, she smiles sweetly, she likes pets, she knows how to chant liturgy, she speaks French. The fact that the Prioress knows such politeness shows that she is attracted more to fashionable society than to the convent. These all qualities are more suitable to the courtly lady than to the nun.
In general, Courtly love was developed during the twelfth century in France. It was a celebrated and idealized form of sensual passion among the nobility. It often involved infidelity
In the tale that Geoffrey Chaucer had wrote, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, a man was described as a Knight. This Knight wasn’t like any normal Knight, he messed up and raped a girl. This is a big mistake, giving a lot of Knights a bad name, and having those that look up to them start to be disappointed in them. Usually the punishment that is given to those that rape, or in general any other crime, is death or time in the slammer, however, the Queen says no because he is a good looking guy. Instead of death, he had find out what women most desire from men. He is given a year and a day to find out, and on the last day, when he nearly had given up all hope, he sees an old woman in a field who makes a deal with him. The old lady gives the Knight a choice: to have an old, but faithful, wife, or to have a drop-dead gorgeous woman, but to have her never to be faithful, before she tells him what the Queen wants to know. The old lady and Knight get married and she wants him to sleep with her, like husbands are supposed to do with their wives. They argue and she gives him the two choices again; to have an ugly wife, but she is faithful. The other choice is to have a drop-dead gorgeous wife, but is never faithful. With this, he learns a lesson, and sufficient punishment.
Courtly love was a secret love or romance between the first knight and the king’s lady that would usually begin with something as small as an exchange of looks through eye glances. Next, a declaration is then discussed by both parties to pursue a relationship under the table from their king or anyone else in the castle. “Gawain glanced at the gracious looking woman …Gawain and the beautiful woman found such comfort and closeness in each other company (line 970,1010)”. Sir Gawain had courted Guinevere while he was at kings Arthurs castle but being here in Bertilak’s Castle he now found a much more stunning lady superior to Guinevere, Lady Bertilak. He had really fallen in love with lady Bertilak at first glance and Lady Bertilak was in love with his heroicness. Moreover, the relationship was established, Sir Gawain was to love her and be obedient to all of her commands as well as to always be polite, courteous and to never exceed the desires of the lover. At one point of the story, Lady Bertilak goes to Sir Gawain’s room in the morning while her husband is away and everyone is sleep because she desires to be with him, “I shall kiss at your command ...should it please you, so press me no more (line 1303). Abiding by the rules of courtly love Sir Gawain is to be a good knight and do as she pleases but
Courtly love defined the romance between a knight and his lady love. A knight must be worthy of love. A knight must be sworn to complete devotion to his beloved. He must hold her in high esteem and do all he can to protect her. A knight must desire no one above his beloved and the thought of her must continually be in his mind. Furthermore, courtly love must be a secret love; it does not exist within marriage. The conventions of medieval courtly love directed a knight towards servitude to his beloved.
Chaucer, in his female pilgrimage thought of women as having an evil-like quality that they always tempt and take from men. They were depicted as untrustworthy, selfish and vain and often like caricatures not like real people at all. Through the faults of both men and women, Chaucer showed what is right and wrong and how one should live. Under the surface, however, lies a jaded look of women in the form that in his writings he seems to crate them as caricatures and show how they cause the downfall of men by sometimes appealing to their desires and other times their fears. Chaucer obviously had very opinionated views of the manners and behaviours of women and expressed it strongly in The Canterbury Tales. In his collection of tales, he portrayed two extremes in his prospect of women. The Wife of Bath represented the extravagant and lusty woman where as the Prioress represented the admirable and devoted followers of church. Chaucer delineated the two characters contrastingly in their appearances, general manners, education and most evidently in their behaviour towards men. Yet, in the midst of disparities, both tales left its readers with an unsolved enigma.
Women in the medieval times were cast into very distinct roles. There was a strict code of conduct that was followed. They were to be submissive to their husbands and follow their lead. A woman’s place was also in the home and the responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc. fell into their domain. Women who deviated from these cultural-set norms made for interesting characters. Chaucer’s use of women and their overstepping their boundaries and typical roles in society make them most memorable.
While courtly love may seem like a fixation of the ancient past, the model courtship, in which two young people fall in love and e...
Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an important part of his most famed work, The Canterbury Tales. One of the most respected highly analyzed of all of the tales, this particular one is important both for its character development and its prevailing themes. It seamlessly integrates ideas on society at that time with strong literary development. This work stands the test of time both because of its literary qualities and because of what it can teach us about the role of women in late Medieval society.
In the Middle Ages, when The Canterbury Tales was written, society became captivated by love and the thought of courtly and debonair love was the governing part of all relationships and commanded how love should be conducted. These principles changed literature completely and created a new genre dedicated to brave, valorous knights embarking on noble quests with the intention of some reward, whether that be their life, lover, or any other want. The Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer, accurately portrays and depicts this type of genre. Containing a collection of stories within the main novel, only one of those stories, entitled “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, truly outlines the 14th century community beliefs on courtly love.
As a man fascinated with the role of women during the 14th Century, or most commonly known as the Middle Ages, Chaucer makes conclusive evaluations and remarks concerning how women were viewed during this time period. Determined to show that women were not weak and humble because of the male dominance surrounding them, Chaucer sets out to prove that women were a powerful and strong-willed gender. In order to defend this argument, the following characters and their tales will be examined: Griselda from the Clerk's Tale, and the Wife of Bath, narrator to the Wife of Bath's Tale. Using the role of gender within the genres of the Canterbury Tales, exploring each woman's participation in the outcomes of their tales, and comparing and contrasting these two heroines, we will find out how Chaucer broke the mold on medievalist attitudes toward women.