'The Wife of Bath' and 'The Rivals' revision

Context (Chaucer): 

• Women were unable to get jobs unless their husbands were in the same profession
• Women were unable to inherit money
• Everytime a woman married her husband took ownership of all her possesions

Context (Sheridan):

• Women were able to inherit money
• Therefore women tended to be richer than they were in Chaucer's day

Chaucer:

• 'It is my good as wel as thyn, pardee!'
• Thou shalt nat bothe ... be maister of my body and of my good'
• 'Some seyde wommen loven best richesse'
• 'Taak al my good, and lat my body go'
• 'genterye is nat annexed to possessioun' 

The Rivals:

• 'How charming poverty will be with him!'
• 'My paltry wealth - that burden on the wings of love'
• 'Why, is it not provoking ... to find myself made a mere Smithfield bargain of at last'
• 'I should not be paid so well, if my hero knew that Delia was near fifty, and her own mistress'
• Lydia 'likes [Absolute] better as a half-pay Ensign than if she knew he was the son and hier to Sir Anthony Abolute'
• 'the fortune is saddled with a wife'
• 'women are not used to weigh, and separate the motives of their affections' 

Chaucer:

• Her husband 'shal be both my dettour and my thral'
• 'I shal have the power duringe al my lyf upon his propre body'
• 'by verray force he rafte hir maydenhed'
• 'Taak al my good, and lat my body go!'
• 'And she obeyed hym in every thyng that myghte doon hym plesance or likyng'
• 'What sholde I taken keep hem for to plese, But it were for my profit and myn ese?'
• 'Oon of us two must bowen'
• 'Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee, As wel over hir housbond as hir love'

The Rivals:

• 'I'd as soon have them taght the black art as their alphabet!'
• 'If I loved you less, I should never give you an uneasy moment'
• 'any choice you have made would be my aversion'
• 'I have set my sum of happiness on this cast, and not to suceed, were to be stripped of all'

The one who is least in love has the most power

Chaucer

• 'in the floor I lay as I were deed'
• 'half as boldely kan ther no man swere and leyen, as a womman kan.'

The Rivals:

• 'I wrote a letter to myself' - Lydia deliberately starts an arguement with 'Beverly'
• 'I should not be paid so well, if my hero knew that Delia was near fifty, and her own mistress!'
• 'the delights [Faulkland's deception] has deprived you of'
• Absolutes deception is 'a mean, unmanly disposition'

.Chaucer:

• Women 'wayte what thyng we may nat lightly have'
• 'It is an impossible that any clerk speke wel of wyves, but if it be of holy seintes lyves'
• 'We love no man that taketh kepe or charge'
• 'For half so boldely can ther no man / Swere and lyen as a womman can'

The Rivals

• 'Why, is it not provoking ... to find myself made a mere Smithfield bargain of at last'
• 'The fortune is saddled with a wife'
• 'Women are not used to weigh, and separate the motives of their affections'
• 'I'd as soon have them taught the black art as their alphabet!'
• 'Thought does not become a young woman'

Chaucer:

• 'Genterye is nat annexed to possessioun'
• 'Gentillesse cometh fro God allone'
• 'And he ne wol doon hem but dishonour'

The Rivals:

• 'This honour seems to me a marvellous false friend'
• 'Your son ... insulted me in a manner which my honour could not brook.'
• 'What the devil signifies right when your honour is concerned?'

Chaucer:

• 'His herte bathed in a bath of blisse'
• 'and she obeyed hym in every thyng'
• Woman want 'wayte thing we may nat lightly have'

The Rivals:

• 'My paltry wealth ... that burden on the wings of love!'
• Lydia likes Absolute 'better as a half-pay Ensign than if she knew he was the son and heir to Sir Anthony Absolute'
• 'Women are not used to weigh, and separate the motives of their affections'
• 'I have set my happiness on this cast, and not to suceed, were to be stripped of all'
• 'If I loved you less, I should never give you an uneasy moment'