LITERATURE QUESTIONS
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AND CULTURE
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Barley bread provides an example of medieval estates satire.
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Barley bread represents the wife’s answer to the belief that virginity is superior to marriage.
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Barley bread suggests the heroine’s state as a fallen woman.
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Barley bread signifies Chaucer’s use of alliterative verse.
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Detailed explanation-1: -Also at this moment, the Wife connects bread to refreshment by saying that Jesus “refresshed” many men with barley bread (152), which connects the Wife’s bread imagery to sex in her reference to a desire to be “refreshed” half so often as Solomon of the hundred wives (38).
Detailed explanation-2: -In her prologue, Chaucer’s Wife defends marriage against religious teachings that claim that it is inferior to celibacy, maintaining the association of marriage with sex but embracing a more modern perspective that sexual pleasure is a virtue and rejecting the idea that wives should always obey their husbands.
Detailed explanation-3: -Women in Society Perhaps the most influential tale regarding this theme is the ‘’Wife of Bath’s Tale. ‘’ In it, she argues that what women desire most is power in a marriage and that, by giving it to them, men would be happier. She conveys this view by using the hag archetype, or symbol.
Detailed explanation-4: -The Wife of Bath is a headstrong bold woman of her time. She shows off her Sunday clothes with evident pride, wearing ten pounds of cloth, woven by herself under her hat. Her clothing symbolizes to the reader that she is not timid or shy and also shows off her expertise as a weaver..
Detailed explanation-5: -In the Wife of Bath’s tale, the Knight has raped a young maiden. His punishment for doing so is death; he is to have his head cut off. However, the King agrees to hand him over to the Queen. The Queen tells the Knight that he must come up with the answer to this question: What do women most desire?