The anti-antifeminist Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales.
Written during the fourteenth century, The Canterbury Tales, by portraying the Christian pilgrimage, represents the medieval lives of noble and lower class. With vivid and realistic illustration of various characters by different professions, the work possesses a deep consideration upon the subtle scheme of human nature. Its author, Geoffrey Chaucer, born humble and yet labors for the noble ladies, who render him an outlook on the life in chateau, acquires the living conceptions from both the lower and upper classes. The contact with the noble ladies, on the other hand, moreover acquaints him with female aspiration. Rich in the worldly wisdom, therefore, he on the one hand satirizes the wickedness and hypocrisy of humanity by means of the presentation of The Canterbury Tales. Concerning his contemporary, during which misogyny prevails, he on the other hand in the work represents the general structure its patriarchal system. Recognizing male dominance plays its oppressing force in the society, therefore, he brings into concerns the endeavoring strife of women under the demanding masculine power. "The Knight's Tale," "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," "The Miller's Prologue and Tale," and "The Clerk's Prologue and Tale," for example, grant a close sight to the marriage and male-female sexual relationship of the medieval time. Whether by the submissive Grisildis or by the assertive Wife of Bath, Chaucer tries to voice for them and thus undermine the deep-rooted patriarchal notion of his age. A delicate female gaze from him, seemingly, is held to explore the inner conflict battling inside his female characters. "He lived in a man's world, achieved eminence as a public figure and a writer in a man's world, yet he had no difficulty at all seeing the world through women's eyes," Donald Howard once suggests in Chaucer.
