If someone were asked to name the incarnation of medieval English literature, it is very likely that the answer would be Geoffrey Chaucer Indeed, this world-renowned poet played a major role in the development of the English language through his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales, among others. However, a genius rarely finds his own. great ideas and it is indeed common for famous authors to draw their literary works on the creations of other writers. Concerning Chaucer, it has been proven that he did so on Boccaccio or Boethius for example, but the work. which will interest us here is the lay of “Lanval” which was written by Marie de France at the end of the 12th century. A significant number of similarities can be noticed between this story and the “Tale of the Wife of Bath” by Chaucer. which may lead one to wonder if Chaucer's aim was to give a second wind to Marie de France. The French lay. The Oxford Dictionary defines a revival as a "new production of an old play or similar work" and this seems to correspond a priori to what "The Wife of Bath's Tale" is in relation to "Lanval". Knowing that Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales two centuries after the publication of Lais de Marie de France, “Lanval” can therefore be considered sufficiently “old” to meet this definition. The “new production” aspect, however, is more difficult to approach. Therefore, I would like to suggest that "The Wife of Bath's Tale" can indeed be referred to as a revival or new production of "Lanval" because the two stories are broadly similar in content and, more importantly, because They have the same main goal, which is to empower women. Thus, after a brief introduction which will highlight the general similarities of the two works, this hypothesis will be proven in the second and main part of this essay by showing that both authors aim to empower women. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original EssayBefore dismissing “The Wife of Bath's Tale” as a remake of “Lanval” thanks to their same goal of empowering female characters, It is necessary to emphasize the fact that the two stories are already practically identical in content. First of all, “The Tale of the Wife of Bath”, as well as “Lanval”, take place in a magical universe. Then they feature similar character types. Indeed, the protagonists of the two tales are a knight and a fairy creature endowed with magical powers. The reader also meets in each of them King Arthur and his wife, the Queen. The plot lines are also very similar. The works of Chaucer and Marie de France both tell the story of a knight put on trial and who escapes certain death thanks to a fairy. Regarding their genre, Esther C. Quinn states that "both are set in the time of King Arthur, take inspiration from fairy love, and experiment with romance." In Marie's lay, the Fairy Mistress tests Lanval. . . and in Chaucer's romance the nameless hero is tested by a series of nameless women” (Quinn 211). It is true that the two stories have certain characteristics which make one think that they belong to a romantic genre, but the simple fact that it is not the knight who saves the damsel but quite the opposite, means that they are classified in a similar unusual category that could be called “unconventional Arthurian romance”. It is also interesting to note that both are not detached works but makepart of a collection. Indeed, “The Tale of the Wife of Bath” belongs to the Canterbury Tales and “Lanval” is part of the Lais de Marie de France. Focusing on the narrative style, it is true that they both include an intrusive narrator who can't help but make observations throughout the story. In “Lanval” for example, the narrator introduces the tale with the following opening: “I will tell you the story of another layman” (Marie de France 73). Other comments can be noted, such as “This knight whose story I am telling you” (73), “I will not fail to tell you the truth” (74), “whose value I cannot tell” (74) or even “and about which I cannot tell anymore” (81). Similarly, Alisoun, the narrator of “The Wife of Bath's Tale,” also intervenes in telling her story, for example when she says: “That was the old opinion, as I have done it again; / I spoke of it several hundred years ago” (Chaucer III: 862-63), “But this story is not worth a rake stele. / Pardee, we women konne no thyng hele; / Witness about Myda – have you heard the story? (III: 949-51), or "The rest of the tale if you will be here, / Redeth Ovyde, and you can see it" (III: 981-82). We can therefore assume that the two works are analogous in their founding principles, which already tends to suggest that “The Tale of the Wife of Bath” could possibly be considered as a new production of “Lanval”. More than similar in their content and structure, these two works seem to achieve an identical goal: to empower women. Whether in “Lanval” or “The Wife of Bath,” the female protagonists are praised for their beauty and are able to derive power over men from it. In the lay of Marie de France, the description of the main female character, the young girl, already highlights her physical attractiveness, when she says that she "surpassed in beauty the lily and the new rose when they appear in summer », “Her body was well formed and beautiful” and that “she was whiter than the hawthorn flower” (Marie de France 74). Later in the story, his charm is confirmed by the narrator's description of his arrival at the court of King Arthur: "There was no one in the city, humble or powerful, old or young, who did not look at his arrived, and no one made fun of her. its beauty. She approached slowly and the judges who saw her thought it was a great marvel. Anyone who had looked at it could not have failed to be inspired by real joy” (80). If the narrator praises so much the extraordinary appearance of the fairy woman of “Lanval”, it is because her beauty contributes to her influence over men. In this sense, Emma Caitlin Briscoe explains that: The young girl's attractive appearance alone is enough to exercise power over the male characters. His physical attributes act as sources of power; the different levels of eroticism, sexualized details and descriptions used to illustrate these women in Marie de France's Lai de Lanval can be read as subtle, and sometimes overt, power plays intended to reconstruct the position of women within the binaries of power. (Briscoe 12-13) It is true that the beauty of the heroine of “Lanval” is a source of power that she uses against men. She takes the opportunity, for example, to attract the attention of the court when she approaches the king during the trial and “in the eyes of everyone, [drops] her cloak so that they can see [her] better” (Marie de France 81). ). The effect of such a demonstration is that the king “rose up to meet him, and all the others honored him and offered themselves as his servants” (81). Unlike the young girl, the female protagonist of "The Wife of Bath's Tale" has a less obvious appeal,for she is often referred to as an old and ugly figure. However, she also gains power from it after her transformation at the end of the tale, when Chaucer writes that "And when the knight had violently said all this, / That she was so fair, and so young until now, / For the joy, he feels location in his arms two. / His herte bathed in a bath of bliss. / A thousand times a-rewe, he praised a kiss” (Chaucer III: 1250-54). In this passage, once the knight sees the old lady's new physical appearance, he takes the woman in his arms and kisses her, his heart beating. Given his denigrating attitude towards the old lady, his actions can be interpreted as a way for him to indulge in her and this shows that the heroine of the tale is also capable of drawing power from her beauty. Beyond her physical appearance, the female protagonists of “Lanval” and “The Wife of Bath's Tale” also draw their power from their actions and their speeches. Indeed, as Quinn explains: “In the context of this male-oriented literature, which celebrates chivalric utility, Chaucer, like Mary, overturns the tradition of saving damsels” (Quinn 216). In both tales, the only person who can save the knight from certain death is the maiden and the old lady respectively. Thus, the lives of the two knights entirely depend on the female protagonists of each story which, of course, gives them significant power. In “Lanval”, the young girl highlights her role as savior when she asks the king: “As for the boast he made, if he can be acquitted by me, let your barons release him!” » (Marie de France 81). In "The Wife of Bath's Tale," the crone's supremacy is even more blatant because, as Quinn explains, the reader is confronted with "the final irony of the tale, namely that the knight is humiliated, domesticated, perhaps redeemed, not by a man of the court. lady, but by an apparently poor old woman who is his wife” (Quinn 216). Women's empowerment can also be noticed elsewhere in the tales. For example, in “Lanval”, the young girl imposes the confidentiality of her relationship with Lanval with the following words: “I warn you, order you and beg you not to reveal this secret to anyone! I will tell you in detail: you would lose me forever if this love made itself known. You will never be able to see me or possess me” (Marie de France 75). By this order, the young girl is the one who sets the rules of their relationship and is therefore in a position of superiority compared to the knight. Furthermore, the narrator reinforces the power of the young girl by dragging some obvious facts throughout the story, as when he says that the fairy “commanded” (75) or that Lanval “allowed her” (75). In “The Wife of Bath”, the old lady proceeds in the same way. For example, after the knight has been acquitted, she speaks before the court and says: “Pity,” she said, “my sovereign lady queen! Um, if you're leaving the yard, do me right. the knight; for which he pillaged me there, the first thing I would like him to ask, he would do it, if it were in his power. Before the court, I prey to you, sir knight," Quod elle, "that you take me from your wife, because you want me to have kept your wife. » (Chaucer III: 1048-56) In this passage, Erin Dee Moore explains that “the old woman. . . manipulate the knight – she will not pass up a possible marriage opportunity. . . she uses tactics to her advantage to interrupt the knight's trial. She waits until the knight is acquitted before announcing her claims against him” (Moore 27). Indeed, if she had waited until the end of the trial to make her request, it is very likely that in private, the knight would haverefused. So, as Chaucer implies when he writes “But all for the night; the end is this, that he / Constreyned was; he needs to marry, / and takes his old wife, and goes to bed. » (Chaucer III: 1070-72), the presence of another powerful woman, the queen, forces the knight to accept the old lady's request. Another striking example of the power of the old lady can be noticed when she issues an ultimatum to the knight and the latter is forced to make a difficult choice between a beautiful but perhaps unfaithful wife or an old and ugly but faithful wife ( III: 1213-27). ). Thus, all these illustrations demonstrate that, through their speeches and actions, the young girl and the old lady both have power over the knights. In addition to the young girl and the old lady, the queens are also female characters who stand out in each tale. thanks to the power they possess as women and not just because they possess a certain imperial power. Indeed, in “Lanval”, after the knight refuses his sexual advances, the queen complains about him to her husband. The king reacted strongly to his wife's accusations and ordered that "if Lanval could not defend himself in court, he would have him burned or hanged" (77), which are severe punishments for simply upsetting the queen. It is true that she would have “manipulated the situation, presenting herself as the victim of an insult towards her husband, and through him she had Lanval judged and almost saw him punished” (“Woman of Bath / Lanval”). His power over the king is noticeable several times throughout the story. For example, when “The king pressed them greatly because the queen was waiting for them” (79) or later, when he says that “[the king] summoned all his barons to give their verdict [because] the queen, who had been waiting for them for so long, got angry” (80). Thus, it is not the authority of a queen that is highlighted in “Lanval”, but rather the power of a woman over her husband. The Queen in “The Wife of Bath's Tale” is also an authority figure and she also exercises superiority over her husband. Even if she only appears at the beginning and end of the tale, the queen has a significant role thanks to the power she possesses. We can first see, when the king commands: This knight was amortized to be a deed, through the law, and sholde han lost his attention --Paraventure swich was the status but --But that the queen and other ladies moSo longe preyeden the king of grace until he his lyf hymn strummed instead, and yaf hym to the queen, al at her will, to know if she wants to save or overthrow the hymn . (Chaucer III: 891-98) Moore's explanation of this scene is that "By placing the knight on trial, the queen and her court want to assert their power over the knight. This is a tactical move to get a man to recognize female desire. . . The queen asks to judge the knight, not because she wants to save his life, but because she wants him to express his feminine desire” (Moore 28). Extrapolating this idea, it is true that not only is the queen stealing the king's authority in this passage, but she is also forcing the criminal to publicly acknowledge something in favor of all women. It can therefore be assumed that, whether in "Lanval" or in "The Tale of the Wife of Bath", the queens, as female figures, also have power in relation to their husbands. Finally, the critique of chivalry that can be drawn from both tales is another aspect that contributes to women's empowerment. Several critics have actually claimed that what differentiated "The Wife of Bath's Tale" from "Lanval" was the authors' and narrators' views on chivalry. However, what I would liketo assert here is that the two tales maintain the same position on this subject. The only difference between the two is that Chaucer's criticism is more obvious than that of Mary of France but that both stories, by devaluing the knights, contribute to strengthening the power of women. Indeed, in “The Wife of Bath's Tale,” Chaucer's denunciation of chivalry is unequivocal: “The chivalric code states that you must treat women with respect. In Chaucer's story we see a great lack of respect for the knight in question. . . he rapes a young girl, disrespects [the old lady] by telling her that she is both old and ugly and that she is not worthy of being with him” (“Lanval” and “ The Wife of Bath » »: similarities and differences between the numbered lines). Through these actions, it becomes clear to the reader that the knight of “The Wife of Bath's Tale” has a real aversion to women. So what gives power to the women here is that, at the end of the tale, even this misogynistic knight lets it happen. the old lady decides the fate of the rest of her existence: This knight avyseth hym et sore siketh, But at the last moment he says in this way: “My lady and my love, and why thus, I place myself in your wise governance; Do you seek what can be the greatest pleasure and the greatest honor for you and for me too. I don't do either of the two, because as you wish, that's enough for me. » (Chaucer III: 1228-35) In the lay of Marie de France, Sharon Kinoshita underlines several “anti-feudal” aspects (Kinoshita 270). For example, Kinoshita states that “Where Lanval considered the feudal bond that linked him to his lord the king, Arthur, as inviolable…. . . is less scrupulous, bringing his vassal to justice for his alleged insults to the queen” (272). It is indeed surprising that the words of an exemplary and devoted knight like Lanval become inaudible to the king's ears in the face of the queen's false accusation. As demonstrated above regarding the queen's authority, the latter's words are more convincing to King Arthur than the explanations of his most trusted knight. This may seem surprising given that chivalry is usually considered a central pillar of the Middle Ages. The most striking example is undoubtedly the behavior of Lanval, considered the archetypal knight thanks to his devotion to the king and his chivalrous attitude. Kinoshita explains in fact that: “In the end, Lanval is striking precisely for its titular protagonist’s rejection of feudal and chivalric values. Taking literally all the clichés of courtly speech – honoring his lady rather than his lord, preferring love to reputation – he abandons Arthur's court, voluntarily choosing an unthinkable oblivion for an epic hero like Roland and a romantic hero like Erec or Yvain. » (272) Thus, what empowers women here is that even the ideal knight prefers to abandon his professional duty to flee with the female protagonist of the story. We can therefore assume that Marie de France and Chaucer, through the criticism of chivalry, contribute to the empowerment of women. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay “The Wife of Bath's Tale” and “Lanval” have a similar form, both telling the story of a knight condemned to death but saved by a fairy. Both stories take place in a fairytale universe and can be described as “Unconventional Arthurian Romance”. Furthermore, certain particularities, such as narrative intrusions, bring them even closer together. However, what really makes “The Wife of-3741.