巴斯妇解经

The Wife of Bath “Glosses”

中古英国诗人乔叟的《坎特伯雷故事》里《巴斯妇的前言》可以看成是一个追求性自由的俗女人解释圣经的案例,是对教会和男权解经传统的颠覆。半世纪以来的文学批评除聚焦其中明显的女权问题,还争论是否宗教改革者威克利夫的英译圣经和以圣经为一切解释之本的思想影响了巴斯妇的解经。本文对此进行考察,通过剖析巴斯妇狂欢化的语言风格,试图揭露深藏在语言中的动荡的能量,并结合乔叟本人对解经的谨慎态度,指出巴斯妇解经集中体现了14世纪英国社会存在于性别、婚姻、阶级、宗教和政治等方面的诸多矛盾。最终,乔叟对他深切关心的男女关系问题并未给出一个清楚的解决方案。他既提倡宽容谅解,又严厉要求犯错犯罪者悔悟改正。

Glossing,as illustrations of difficult words in texts,in particular the Bible,is a medieval practice of the learned male,especially the Church fathers,but the Wife of Bath in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales challenges and subverts this authoritative patriarchal tradition by glossing the Bible in her own way to justify her pentagamy. While critical attention over the last five decades has been focusing on her obvious feminism,her engagement with Lollardy,i.e. Wycliffian reliance on the Bible as the basis of all meaning,has become a controversial issue. The present article explores the gender conflict as embodied by the Wife's biblical glossing through an analysis of her carnivalesque linguistic and narrative style. It argues that Chaucer's deliberate ambiguity towards glossing and political events of his day as well as his multi-layered presentation of the various marriage relationships in The Canterbury Tales renders the issue anything but definitive. The juxtaposition of these multiple layers probably also demonstrates that for Chaucer,the best way to handle a marriage relationship is to combine the seemingly contradictory attitudes,i.e.,both partners should understand and forgive each other while at the same time repent and correct their own mistakes.