The Wife of Bath’s Tale is complicated even though tale is shorter than the prologue. Before getting to her tale, she tells a great deal about herself. Loves to talk. She is a willful woman. She is a woman of size, volume and attitude, and like the other pilgrims and their tales, her tale too matches her personality. She has a fair face, a bold face, a red face. She has a gap between her front teeth, which in medieval times was considered sensuous. She has outlived five husbands and is on this pilgrimage to find her sixth. Her first three husbands were old and rich. They let her run the marriage and they are happy. The fourth husband has another woman on the side. She is losing her beauty. Her fifth husband was younger and she was passionate about him. She married a real man. She is a troubled soul, and Chaucer takes pity on her. She too has a soul to save. She admits to loneliness, a heart that is softening. She is open to spiritual guidance and can now use the help of a good priest. Her tale comes just before the Parson’s Tale, a good priest.
The Merchant’s and Franklin’s Tales continues the central theme of marriage and divine providence. The stories reflect souls that know themselves well and those souls that do not. The unexamined life is not worth living. In the Merchant’s Tale, old January is a lusty man, but cannot commit fornication. So he reasons to fulfill his passions in marriage to young May. It is marriage for the wrong reasons. He has found a loophole in God’s law. It is a sham marriage. The husband goes blind and cannot see he is being cuckolded. His sight returns and she tells him not to believe what he sees. He remains blind, both spiritually and emotionally. He does not know himself. The Franklin’s Story is about courtly love, a popular story of the time. A knight falls in love with a lady. He sails off and she worries he will die on the rocks of the coast. A squire in town falls in love with her, promises to remove the rocks to win her favor. He does. The knight returns safe, she must keep her promise, the squire says no. They all follow the new commandment: just be nice. They do not know themselves.
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is given by a holy and intelligent priest. He has listened carefully to the other tales and now responds to them. He possesses an excellent and kindly wit. He uses a barnyard tale with animals as his characters to make his many points. The rooster in the barnyard is very sure of himself, overly sure. He has a dream that frightens him. His favorite hen tells him to ignore it. A fox shows up, compliments the rooster, and as he is stretching his neck to crow, the fox grabs him. The farmers follow in hot pursuit. The rooster tells the fox to call off the farmers, and when he opens his mouth to speak the rooster escapes. He kept his wits, and lives. He is now a humble rooster. The Pardoner’s Tale begins talks openly about himself: his only interests are self and money. He preaches on the sin of love of money, his own very sin. He convinces everyone of their own guilt to give him money, but ignores his own guilt. He is clever, intelligent, and pure evil. His story is of three men who seek to root out death, only to find death.
Dr. White’s introduction to this series sweeps a broad brush across a palette of major Catholic authors and poets, focusing on the three he considers the true “giants”: Shakespeare, Cervantes, and of course, Dante. White laments that few –– even scholars –– have read Dante; and that much of our Catholic literary heritage has been jettisoned. To White, Dante is the central poetic image for the Middle Ages, and the Inferno his personal vision –– one man’s journey; and something that must be read.
In this commentary, Dr. White expands his discussion of literature to include “art” in its broadest sense: painting, architecture, music, chant, drama, etc. In his view, all art is an extension of the glories of the Catholic faith, and he explains how the Church is a source of art in all its forms. White tells us art can draw souls to God and that literature does not only educate but can also delight us. He reminds us that literature provides for an interior life and that art feeds the soul.
Here Dr. White instructs the listener on how to approach literature. He advises a reader of Dante to first gain some background knowledge about the poet, who was born in 1265 and died in 1321, making him a true mediaeval writer. The significance of this, according to White, is that modern man sees a scientific universe, while mediaeval man saw God’s order; and Dante even defined hell as an ordered place. The Divine Comedy, according to Dr. White, takes the reader on a spiritual journey.
