Curtis, Kristen Haas (2025). The Wife of Bath, Unbecoming: Adaptation and Obscenity in Eighteenth-Century Chaucerian Retellings. (Thesis). Universität Bern, Bern

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Abstract

More than any of her fellow pilgrims, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath has attracted scrutiny over the centuries since her introduction in the Canterbury Tales. This thesis focuses on the framing of the Wife’s character as obscene and the adaptational responses that this framing later invites, notably in eighteenth-century retellings, which appeared during a dramatic shift in the reception of Chaucer’s work as changing demographics of readers became a source of significant cultural anxiety. While a considerable amount of scholarship has been produced on Chaucerian adaptation, on the character of Wife of Bath and her afterlife, and on various understandings of obscenity across time, the intersection of these three topics has not been considered at length. Drawing together the work of theorists in cultural studies, medieval literature, and adaptation studies, this thesis examines how the decision-making processes behind the adaptation of an allegedly obscene text can expose cultural preoccupations that require a broader understanding of what constitutes obscenity. In their reinterpretations of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, eighteenth-century adaptations frequently shift their focus from the Wife’s sexual behavior (her traditional “obscene” quality) to other aspects of her character: her vocality and her age. This thesis argues that while adapters’ treatment of the Wife’s lasciviousness indicates an understanding of her character as sexually obscene, their responses to the Wife’s volubility and status as an older woman suggest that her character’s excessive voice and her visible feminine aging are elements of what I theorize as social obscenity. This term puts forth the idea that feminine behavior (even of a nonsexual or nonscatological nature) that is deemed to be overly visible or excessive is viewed and treated as a violation of gendered social taboos. This dissertation does not offer a comprehensive treatment of adaptations of the Wife of Bath; rather, it treats a number of prominent adaptations of this character during the early eighteenth century with a specific view towards their engagement with obscenity and its social forms. The main body of texts that this thesis considers includes two ballads, a play in both its original form and as it was rewritten over a decade later, and a poetic modernization. These texts were all either printed during the eighteenth century or, in the case of the ballads, were composed earlier but retained their popularity as they were referenced and reprinted during the eighteenth century. All acknowledge their Chaucerian origins and focus on the Wife of Bath as a character rather than on her tale. Chapter One examines an early adaptation which highlights the argumentative voice of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath as her key transgressive feature. The broadside ballad The Wanton Wife of Bath detaches the Wife from her Chaucerian context and imagines a story occurring after her death in which her vocality becomes her most noteworthy characteristic. Chapter Two introduces a second ballad that retains the vocal unruliness that defined the Wife in the first chapter and points to her aging as a further troubling characteristic. This second ballad, The Wife of Beith, adapts and enlarges upon the earlier Wanton Wife of Bath ballad, in part through the addition of two Scots concepts: the verbally aggressive act of flyting and the term carling, a derogatory word generally applied to an aging woman. The primary texts of Chapter Three, two plays by John Gay, represent a shift in format and adaptational approach. Gay’s plays transport the Wife of Bath from the ballad-singing of the London streets to the professional stage, where she is portrayed alongside a few fellow-pilgrims in a satirical comedy that highlights her unruly voice and advanced age while also retaining and exaggerating her lascivious nature. Chapter Four turns to a poetic retelling by Alexander Pope which responds to all three key aspects treated in earlier chapters—voice, age, and sexuality—by “modernizing” Chaucer’s work. I argue that reading this text through the lens of social obscenity exposes it as the adaptation demonstrating the highest degree of authorial intervention in reinterpreting the Wife, with significant cultural ramifications. The conclusion of this thesis reflects on my own experiences contending with obscenity and femininity as a middle-aged woman adapting the Wife of Bath as a character in my ongoing graphic memoir, Repainting the Lion. As I have experienced in the process of creating adaptations of my own, the inclusion of the Wife’s socially and sexually obscene qualities might be key to adapting her character, but it does not follow that this is necessarily an easy or straightforward task. Through theorizing the concept of social obscenity, this thesis opens up a new way to think about what it means to consider responses to certain types of femininity (“too loud,” “too old,” “too sexual”) as if they were obscene. In applying the name of social obscenity to this concept, this thesis takes inspiration from Miranda Fricker’s work on hermeneutical injustice, which Fricker argues results from social conditions which prevent certain marginalized members from having the tools or vocabulary to make sense of their own experiences and consequently being actively harmed by this lack (155). Beyond eighteenth-century studies, adaptation studies, or even Chaucer studies, this expanded understanding invites us to think about obscenity itself as a “double process” in which we play an active role in interpretation and can further instigate change through our reinterpretations.

Item Type:	Thesis
Dissertation Type:	Single
Date of Defense:	25 February 2025
Subjects:	400 Language > 420 English & Old English languages 800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism > 820 English & Old English literatures
Institute / Center:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures
Depositing User:	Hammer Igor
Date Deposited:	30 Sep 2025 15:12
Last Modified:	30 Sep 2025 15:12
URI:	https://boristheses.unibe.ch/id/eprint/6749

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