Clerks Tale from the Ellesmere MS Petrarch De
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Clerk’s Tale from the Ellesmere MS
Petrarch, De Patientia Griseldis Italy: Fourteenth/Fifteenth Century MS Hunter 480 (V. 7. 7)
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 -1375) Petrarch (1304 -74)
1. The Clerk's Tale is best read dramatically, as the Clerk's direct reply to the Wife of Bath. The Clerk has been scandalized by the Wife's outrageous behavior and offers up the tale of Patient Griselda as corrective, an example of how wives ought to behave. The reference to the Wife of Bath at the end of his tale is mocking and ironic. Why this is persuasive: The problem with this reading is: 2. The Clerk's Tale is best read allegorically, not as a realistic story. Petrarch's moral, translated at 1142 -1162, is the best one: we should understand Griselda's patience and obedience to Walter as an image of the duty we all owe God, and "lyve in vertuous suffraunce. " Why this is persuasive : The problem with this reading is: 3. The Clerk is in essential agreement with the Wife of Bath, and he finds the tale an example of extravagant if not pathological behavior, especially on Walter's part. There are no Griseldas in the real world, he says, and it's better that way; wives should not dread but dominate their husbands. The "Envoy" is his final word on the matter, and should be taken seriously, not ironically. Why this is persuasive : The problem with this reading is:
English 4260 Winter 2010 Clerks’ Tale quiz RENDER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING PASSAGES INTO MODERN ENGLISH PROSE. (A) The folk hire folwe, wepynge in hir wey, And Fortune ay they cursen as they goon; But she fro wepyng kepte hir eyen dreye, Ne in this time word ne spak she noon. Hir fader, that this tidynge herde anoon, Curseth the day and tyme that Nature Shoop hym to been a lyves creature. (B) And whan this Walter saugh hir pacience, Hir glade chiere, and no malice at al, And he so ofte had doon to hire offence, And she ay sad and constant as a wal, Continuynge evere hire innocence overal, This sturdy markys gan his herte dresse To rewen upon hire wyfly stedfastnesse.
