Chaucer

• KEY LINES: prologue

  • 1-29 = Start of the text
  • 34-55 = King Solomon
  • 70-110 = Talks about virginity
  • 196-223 = Wife talks about her marriages
  • 285-317 = the bad husbands (oxen, asses)
  • 380-412 = Wife tricks husband
  • 468-500 = the wife when she was young
  • 609-626= men are from Mars, women are from Venus
  • 629-640 = Jankin hits her, she takes a page out of the book
  • 692-720 = who painted the lion
  • 747-781 = the tree where women hung themselves
  • 782-810 = wife snatches pages from the book, he hits her
• KEY LINES: Tale

  • 887-906 = Knight rapes lady then goes to court
  • 1109-1138 = loathly lady lectures knight
  • 1195-1225 = poverty and ugly
  • 1226-1264 = end of tale
• KEY QUOTES 1-29:

  • "Experience"- starts the text like this suggests she is an expert in life through her sexual authority
  • "men may devine and glosen, up and down" reference to exegesis
  • "wexe and multiplie"
  • "I wel understonde"
• KEY QUOTES 34-55:

  • "he hadde wives mo than oon"
  • "blessed be God that i have wedded five!"
  • "bet is to be wedded than to brinne"
• KEW QUOTES 70-110:

  • "Virginitee, thanne whereof sholde it growe"
  • "For peryl is both fyr and tow t'assemble"
  • "Every vessel al of gold; somme been of tree" reference to vessels of honour and dishonour- 2 Timothy
• KEY QUOTES 196-223:

  • "they had me yeven hir lond and hir tresoor"
  • "i hadde hem holly in myn hond"
  • "I governed hem so well"
  • "I chidde hem spitously"
• KEY QUOTES 285-317:

  • "oxen, asses, hors and houndes"
  • "wives maken noon assay till they be wedded"
  • "be maister of my body and of my good"
• KEY QUOTES 380-412:

  • "Al was fals"
  • "i bare hem on honde"
  • "al swich wit is yeven us in oure birthe"
• KEY QUOTES 469-501:

  • "It tikleth me about myn herte roote"
  • ""the bren as i best kan, now moste i selle"
  • "his shoo ful bitterly him wrong"
• KEY QUOTES 609-626:

  • "Myn herte is Marcien"
  • "love was sinne"
  • "i followed ay myn inclinacioun"
• KEY QUOTES 629-640:

  • "he smoot me"
  • "Stibourn i was as is a leonesse"
• KEY QUOTES 692-720:

  • "Who peynted the leon" Aesop's fable if a lion had made the statue then the men would be defeated
  • "Venus loveth riot and dispence"
  • "Was al mankinde broght to wrecchednesse"
• KEY QUOTES 747-781:

  • "Thus algates housbondes han sorwe"
  • "wives thre hanged hemself"
  • "blissed tree, and in my gardin planted shal it bee"
  • "he spak moore harm... than in this world ther growen gras"
• KEY QUOTES 782-810:

  • "lyk a gold ring in a sowes nose"
  • ""thre leves have i plight"
  • "he smoot me"
  • "it is thyself to wite"
• KEY QUOTES 887-906:

  • "dampned was this knight for to be deed"
  • "the queen and othere ladies... preyeden the king of grace"
  • ""thy nekke-boon from iron!"
• KEY QUOTES 1109-1139:

  • "gentillesse as is descended out of old richesse"
  • "vertuous alway privee and apert"
  • "Crist wole we claime him our gentillesse" "nat of oure eldres for hire old richesse"
  • "Dantes tale" italian literature- inspiration- attacking his own class
  • "they might not do vileynie or vice"
• KEY QUOTES 1177-1225:

  • "in wilful poverte chees to live his lyf"
  • "noght have, ne coveith have, is riche"
  • "wardeyns upon chastitee"
• KEY QUOTES 1226-1264:

  • "My lady and my love and wyf so deere"
  • "I wol be to yow bothe"
  • "she obeyed him in everything"
  • "And....And....And"
  • "shorte hir lives that wol nat be governed by hir wives"