从女性主义视角解读乔叟《巴斯妇的故事》中关于“何为高贵”的说教艺术

A Feminist Reading of the Didactic Art of the Sermon on Gentillesse in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale

本文主要从女性主义视角解读乔叟在《巴斯妇的故事》中关于“何为高贵”的说教艺术。文章的论述主要分两个部分展开:第一部分通过解读“何为高贵”说教的文本意义来展现故事中老妇人通过说教成功掌握了对骑士的统治权,从而实现了权力关系的第一次反转;第二部分主要通过分析骑士在接纳老妇人说教后,老妇人继而放弃对于骑士统治权与其之前的说教矛盾之处,使得权力关系再次反转。两次权力关系的反转体现了乔叟试图打破传统婚姻关系中男女所扮演的角色界限的尝试,即男女双方能否通过放弃置于对方之上的统治权从而建立互惠关系。

This paper mainly examines Chaucer's didactic art of the sermon on gentillesse in The Wife of Bath'Tale from a feminist perspective.It consists of two parts:The first part shows that the old hag has successfully gained the sovereignty over the knight through preaching the sermon by interpreting the textual connotations of gentillsse.Thus,the first reversal of power relations is realized.The second part demonstrates the hag's duplicity in her practice of sovereignty by a close look at the contradiction between her sermon on gentillesse and her final renunciation of the sovereignty over the knight after his subversion to her sovereignty,which makes power relations reverse again.The two reversals of power relations reflect Chaucer's attempt to break the limitation of gender roles in the traditional marital relationshipthat is-men and women can establish a mutually beneficial relationship by giving up the sovereignty over each other.