Feminism in Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale"
Feminism in Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale"
Although Chaucer has sometimes been called a sexist author, one of the ‘dead white males’ whose vision of the world is patriarchal and demeaning to women, such an accusation is far from being valid. In ‘The Knight’s Tale’, for instance, what we are presented with is, in fact, a subversion of other sexist literature. Rather than simply delivering a conventional romance in this work, what Chaucer does is have his Knight tell a tale in which typical male figures from such works are made to look ridiculous. His Arcite and Palamon are revealed as fools, while the object of their affection, Emelye, is shown to be much wiser. We can, therefore, look at this work as a pro-feminist statement made well before its time.
The male lovers in the Knight’s story make a number of conventional remarks about their female love interest, Emelye. In typical fashion, she is likened to a heavenly creature:
And as an aungel hevenyshhly she song… (197)
….
Thow woost nat yet now
Wheither she be a woman or goddesse! (298-300)
Rather than a mere human – with human interests and desires – the female is made to be unearthly. This may sound like wholly complimentary, but what it does is place an unreasonable amount of expectations on her to act and to be heavenly so that the men may continue to support their fantasy. Furthermore, this fantasizing has its dark side, like any fantasy. While the woman is made to be a goddess, the unreachability of the woman is made into a negative thing: a prison that is tormenting the men. As Arcite remarks to Palamon of his predicament:
Thyne is the victorie of this aventure.
Ful blissfully in prisoun maistow dure.
In prisoun? Certes, nay, but in paradys!
Wel hath Fortune y-turned thee the dys,
That hast the sight of hire, and I th’absence (377-382).
Palamon responds with his own prison metaphors: “Yow loveris, axe I now this questioun, / Who hath the worse, Arcite or Palamoun? / That oon may seen his lady day by day, / But in prisoun moot he dwelle alway” (489-492). What has happened here, therefore, is that the woman has come...