Canterbury

The Clerk’s Tale is an indirect response to the Wife of Bath who stated that women desire complete sovereignty over their husbands and lovers. The Clerk puts forth a diametrically opposite view and draws the sketch of a totally submissive woman. Chaucer’s source for the Clerk’s tale is Petrarch’s ‘Fable of Obedience and Wifely Faith’ written in Latin that was in turn derived from Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’. Chaucer closely follows Petrarch’…

…and openly praises him. There are no ironic overtones in the Clerk’s portrait apart from the pun on his being a philosopher and yet being poor. In the Middle Ages, a philosopher also implied an alchemist who claimed to transform base metals into silver and gold. Chaucer’s Clerk does not have gold in his coffer. He is a serious student of logic and philosophy and has willingly forfeited worldly pleasures for intellectual enrichment.