Week 4 - Belinda

Hi guys, sorry about adding a new post. Blogger is not allowing me to reply or add comments, it could be the new format, or hijacking? Either way, it's really annoying but, here is my posts for week 4.

1. Cite some variations in the Loathly Lady fabula across the three tales in your Reader. Focus on the conditions by which the lady is either beautiful or ugly, and the actions of the knight/king/"hero"...

A loathly lady may be defined as a woman of a grotesquely unflattering nature; a hag with near beast like physical attributes. She is an allegory of ugly in its purest form. Though ugly and unattractive she may be, she appears to master the strings of the puppet knights/kings as they chuck in the proverbial white towel and surrender to her authority. The tales by Chaucer and Hahn and Steeleye Spans song lyrics weave a story about an unfortunate ‘noble’ who crosses paths with a hag, who demands of him a task in order to keep their lives.  There are variations to all three, however they share a common theme, and all end in the same manner.

In Chaucers’ The Wife of Bath’s Tale the hag is described as an uglier creature (999), Thou art so loathsome, and so old (1100) and a descendant of low born lineage (1101). The hag agrees to help him find the answer to the task he was given, but it comes with a condition (of marriage to the knight himself if he is fortunate enough to keep his neck from colliding with steel (906). Eventually the two marry, much to the dismay of the knight (1071), and the wedding night brings him no joy (1085) which does not go un-noticed by his hag wife (1088). At this point, Chaucer has devoted a good percentage of stanzas to the plight of the hag who ‘counsels’ the knight in nobility and love, she eventually gives him two choices (1219). To have her ugly and old (1220) true and humble (1221) or to have her young and fair (1223) and perhaps unfaithful (1225). Thus she yields to him, and perhaps trusting he will choose wisely. This is the climax, where the knight has understood her wise governance (1231) regarding nobility and humility, he appears to have made a 360, and chooses to remain in the marriage bed with his wife; who in turn rewards him by presenting herself to him as young and beautiful (1251).

Hahns The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle uses darker tones to describe the hag; Her face was red, her nose running, Her mouth set wide, her teeth all yellow. Her eyes were bleary, as large as balls, Her mouth just as large. Her teeth hung out of her lips, Her cheeks were as broad as a woman’s hips. Her back was as curved as a lute. Her neck was long and also thick. Her hair clotted in a heap etc, her appearance had Arthur ‘surely marveled’; however he still refers to her as fair. Arthur is at war with himself at the thought of Gawain marrying a woman so unsightly, yet Gawain senses his Kings distress, and even though Arthur relays the unfortunate meeting, Gawain is depicted as a most noblest knight who serves his king accordingly and advises the Arthur that he shall marry when the he says, “I wolle wed her att whate tyme ye wolle sett”. In this tale, clearly Gawain is set apart from the king as an admirable nobleman; however, it is the loathly lady who has yet again wielded power and authority over the two men by securing a marriage to Gawain through her ransom of Arthur’s life.

In Steeleye Spans song King Henry, the loathly lady is painted just as unsightly as Hahns hag; Her middle you could not span; her teeth were like tether stakes; Her nose like club or mell, and nothing less she seemed to be than a fiend that comes from hell etc. She urges Henry to kill his horse, and she proceeds to consume the slain beast. However, although she has fed from the horse, still she requires food and orders he slay his greyhounds for more meat, and Henry obliges even though the cruel acts sadden him. As it turns out, he kills his goshawks, makes a leather pipe of his slain horses hide for wine and when she is done she all but orders him to lay beside her in bed he had made. The only objection King Henry has is at that moment when he says “oh god forbid, that ever the like betide, that ever a fiend that comes from hell should stretch down by my side”. But come morning he is rewarded for being a courteous knight by awakening next to the fairest lady that was ever seen.

 Chaucer didn’t go into any particulars about the hags appearance, other than she was ugly and old and a mother (1005). Chaucer painted the knight as submissive, who eventually allows his hag wife what women most desire; authority. A definite prevalent theme in the tales is gender role destabilization; the ideology that men had all the power during the Arthurian era was challenged.

References

Chaucer, Geoffrey (c.1390). The Wife of Bath.

Hahn, T. (Ed). (1995). The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. In Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications

Steeleye Span (1972). King Henry. In Below the Sale. US:Shanachie.

                         

4. In the context of Elizabethan and Jacobean sonnets, how can we define "conceits"? 

Abrams (1993) defines conceit as extended metaphors, used to “express satire, puns, or deeper meanings within the poem”, whose roots are of Middle English origin. Where poets’ ideas require a deeper meaning, metaphors or similes  lends itself to this process (conceits) i.e.  17^th century poets used conceits to draw attention to compare unlike things that often showcased their skill. A comparison could be something simple as nature, and the features of a woman to ice and the heat of desire one would have for the opposite sex. Conceits all but uses metaphors to lengthen parts of a poem.

For example, Shakespeare Sonnet XVIII

1. Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

4. And summer’s lease hath all too short a date

5. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines

1. Comparison of a warm summers day, to the warm inviting features of a woman

2. Beautiful and lovely, where as summer can be hot or scorching

3. Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May (spring)

4. Summer is too short

5. Sometimes the day is too hot

References

Abrams, M.H. (1993). The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6^th ed. NY:W.W. Norton and Company, Inc,. p.1081