Expressive Criticism In The Wife Of Bath's Tale

Expressive Criticism Expressive criticism is how the author conveys his thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and experiences in his work. In this tale, there are many instances where Chaucer includes mythical creatures and people to bring a more vivid image to the readers. The Wife of Bath’s Tale is an ‘AABB’ rhyming scheme tale, the author has just intrigue the audience with a different kind of story. In the beginning, Chaucer had not yet spoken of religion or figurative folk, but he has brought to attention that there is a queen and king, which sets the time period back to the medieval times. Although in lines 33-35 the author brings of fairies and elves, “This was a land brim-full of fairy folk, The Elf-Queen…Their elfin dance on many a green mead.” Further into the essay the author then contradicts his early
Adding on to the list of beings was Ovid, who wrote of a collection of tales about Midas, the author does not stray from the myth lives that he may have listened to as a boy. “Remember Midas?... Among some other little things, now stale, Ovid relates that under his long hair…” (127-129), he asks if the audience knows of this mythical god and will accept that he has a role in this tale. Later the lady has a secret that she cannot tell, but looks towards Ovid’s story to save her soul, “Betray me not, O water… the secret’s out! (150 & 153). In Ovid’s story, Midas’s barber tells the secret to a hole, reeds grow up and whisper the secret in the wind. Chaucer adds this story into the tale because this tells the audience about the moral of the story. Midas had a secret that his wife knew about, which gave her all the power and the decision, but since the secret was about her own husband she could not risk his reputation. Then the crone comes into the tale, she's everything a man does not want in a wife, yet because she has the power she forces the knight to marry her. In the end though, she tells the knight “Kiss me… On my oath and word of honor,