`` What Athleticism Is This, That Those Her Golden Tresses By Edmund Spenser

Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” and Pablo Neruda’s “My ugly love” are popularly known to describe beauty in a way hardly anyone would write: through the truth. It’s a common fact that modern lovers and poets speak or write of their beloved with what they and the audience would like to hear, with kind and breathtaking words and verses. Yet, Shakespeare and Neruda, honest men as they both were, chose to write about what love truly is, it matters most what’s on the inside rather than the outside. The theme of true beauty and love are found through Shakespeare and Neruda’s uses of imagery, structure, and tone.

On the other hand, this mysterious woman is defined by nature. She is incredibly beautiful and she is seemed to be illustrated as a nymph because they roam around the meadow with lavishing clothing and with rare beauty. “ their clothes were in expensive taste, close- fitting tunics, tightly laced, made of deep- dyed purple wool. Their faces were most beautiful. The older of the two conveyed.”(56). As demonstrated in other works of epic and romance, usually the older women is possessed with unnatural magic or obtains bargains with the younger gentlemen just like in this story. In addition, the older woman is always illustrated to be the most beautiful woman the male character has ever seen. In Lanval, nature v. humanity comes to play when the Queen is rejected by Sir Lanval for the Nymph who stole his heart. By this display of rejection the Queen falsely accuses Lanval as a man who betrays the oath and code of conduct to King Arthur and the rest comes to play. On the other hand, in “Sir Gawain and The Green Knight” the theme of nature v. humanity is demonstrated through the characters of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. In this poem, Sir Gawain represents humanity, civilization and honor while the Green Knight represents nature and deviance. This concept is presented in the wager the was made between the Knight and the Green Knight, in this “beheading game”.

The characteristics of a “perfect” woman have clearly changed over time, and The Courtier proves this throughout conversations in the third volume. Some desired qualities are common to both the courtier and the court

All through Canterbury Tales, women are dealt with as objects in everyday life. In the “Miller’s Tale,” an old man marries a younger, attractive women for her looks. In the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” a virgin woman has her virginity and innocence taken from her by what is suppose to be a noble and honorable knight and when his punishment is later to marry an older, less attractive women, all respect for his newly wife vanishes. A woman’s level of recognition in Canterbury Tales are through her class in society, whether she is young and beautiful, or old and disgusting, and her degree of experience in life. Women are not desired for their intelligence, wisdom and capabilities which might of kept a relationship deceitful-free. The “Wife of

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem The Canterbury Tales a young Chaucer tells of the people he meets on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett in Canterbury. One of the most vivacious characters on the pilgrimage is The Wife of Bath. Both the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale share a common theme of a woman’s control in a relationship with a man. The Wife of Bath and the old hag in her tale share a similar perspective on what women want most in life. In the prologue and tale the reader is exposed to the idea that what women most desire in life is to have control over their husbands and lovers. This tale and its prologue are linked through the way that Dame Alice, the Wife of Bath, fashions the old hag in her tale after herself.

In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” by Geoffrey Chaucer, a knight shows how difficult it is to understand the opposite sex. The knight commits a crime and in order to save his own life he must find the answer to the question “What is the thing that women most desire?” (Collections 79 line 79). Answering the question is difficult for the knight because he does not have a wide understanding of women. He goes on a year-long journey to find the answer. He searches everywhere. “He knocked at every house, searched every place, yes, anywhere that offered hope of

Male seducers are represented as boys sowing their oats -- part of normal living. Seduced females are viewed as weak and treacherous --  a treachery that woman in her "frailty" is unable to avoid. This is a very bizarre message.

She wraps her female sexual fantasy of Guenever's humiliation around a woman's perception of a male masturbatory fantasy. A handsome, dejected knight withdraws to a forest meadow next to a stream to reflect on his ill fortune. When he wakes from a nap, two lovely maidens take him to a fabulous pavilion where he spends the afternoon making love to the most beautiful woman on earth who loves him "more than anything" (116). Moreover, his generous lover provides him with "a dowry" of inexhaustible means and the opportunity to have her whenever he wishes, knowing he will circumscribe his pleasures to discrete circumstances. Marie's lai reflects twelfth-century feminine tastes.

In Chaucer’s “Franklin Tale” the plot revolves around a married couple: the knight, Arviragus, his young wife, Dorigen, and a young squire, Aurelius who importunes and attempts to Dorigen. The characters can be said to oscillate between desire and their ego honor which affects what they say and do. Lacan’s definition of desire tells us that we desire for recognition from this “Other.” Our desire is to become what the other person lacks. Duby’s model of courtly love is a concept that focuses on chivalry, nobility and women being at the center. In this paper, I will examine what the story reveals about the relation each character has to his or her desire, how they act in accordance to their desire and the role magic or illusion plays in the plot and how it affect characters’ relation to desire.

From the very beginning, the nature of love in She Walks in Beauty is alluded to be captivating. That is that the woman he sees is very attractive or interesting and that she is taking up all of this thoughts and attention. Typically in this time period, the beautiful women were blonde and pale, opposite to this is the woman portrayed in this poem. The comparison to night and day or light and dark, two completely opposite things, shows one really beautiful thing. In the first line the simile “like the night” (Ln 1) established the initial beauty he saw. In addition, the use of the personification in “tender light” (Ln 5) shows that through the woman’s beauty his

Robert Herrick, an author from the 17th century enjoyed writing about intimacy and pleasure within his poems. The poem to be discussed throughout the paper is The Vine, by Robert Herrick, because of it’s rich metaphoric and symbolic aspect to love, pleasure, and dominance. Essentially the poem, The Vine, as a whole is a metaphor because the speaker has taken the form of a vine or tendril in the poem. The poem is about a man actually dreaming of a woman, Lucia. Lucia is referred to as dainty and the speaker describes her physical characteristics which helps the reader picture what is happening. Robert Herrick specifically uses certain words to express his love and feelings for Lucia. The simile in the poem that is most significant in its entirety is “And found (ah me!) this flesh of mine/More like a stock than like a vine” (22/23). In these lines, the speaker is waking up from his sexual dream. The speaker explains that he is feeling more of a stock than a vine. This is symbolic because the title of the poem is, The Vine, as the speaker has transformed himself into a vine in his dream. By saying he is feeling more like a stock can be interpreted as the growth has diminished and he can no longer love freely for a long time. His love for Lucia is hardening or ending. The physicality of the stock to a vine can also imply that he is waking up with an erection. The speaker is turned on by his dream and has woken up with the feeling of pleasure. These lines are extremely important to the entirety of the poem because it ends with the speaker waking up from his dream and the reader is aware of how he feels.

The portrayal of men and women has varied in different stories throughout history. Many portray women as beautiful, deceptive, manipulative, and smart, while men are portrayed as being strong, masculine, and easily tricked. In many of the works covered in the course “Major British Writers to 1800,” men are advised to refrain from acting lustful, believed that it would harm their overall ability to succeed in whatever the characters aimed to do. An example of this is seen in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” when Gawain is deceived by Lady Bertilak in an effort to prove that Sir Gawain is imperfect. The depictions of men and women are very similar in Fantomina by Eliza Haywood, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Phyllis and Aristotle. .

The perception of beauty in Shakespeare

Misogyny is not only visible in the Miller’s tale, but also in the Wife of Bath’s tale through the very superficial standards set for women by men. The old woman asks that the knight marries her in return for giving him the answer to the riddle and he reacts in disgust and horror, “‘...to take me as your wife…‘Alas and woe is me!...I am ugly and poor…my damnation! Alas, that any of my birth should ever be so foully disgraced!” (Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” 199-213). The knight is visibly distraught, using words such as “damnation” and “disgraced” when the old woman expresses her wish to marry him. He displays these emotions not because she wants to get married, but because she is ugly and poor. He is worried because an ugly wife will mar his reputation and is a poor reflection of him. This translates to the misogynistic society during the time period where women were seen as property to be shown off, rather than people who deserved respect. The recurring theme of misogyny in these two tales shows that Chaucer does not feel sympathy for the opposite gender, but instead belittles their plight.

    Edmund Spenser in his epic romance, The Faerie Queene, invents and depicts a wide array of female figures.  Some of these women, such as Una and Caelia, are generally shown as faithful, virtuous and overall lovely creatures.  Other feminine characters, such as Errour, Pride, and Duessa are false, lecherous and evil.  This might seem to be the end of Spenser's categorization of women; that they are either good or bad.  Yet upon closer examination one finds that Spenser seems to be struggling to portray women more honestly, to depict the "complex reality of woman" (Berger, 92).  Spenser does not simply "idealize women or the feminine viewpoint" as he could easily do