Marisa Crichton Amaya and “The Knight’s Tale”

EN 101 (“Encounters: Reading across Time and Space”) pairs older literary texts with modern works that respond to them with appreciation, ambivalence, and resistance. Along with traditional critical assignments, the course includes a creative project that allows students to stage their own encounters by responding to readings in the form and media of their choice. The course envisions literary history as an ongoing conversation in which students participate.

Senior English major Marisa Crichton Amaya created this collage and “blackout” poem in response to reading Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale,” a story told from the perspective of the Wife of Bath that describes how a knight commits sexual assault and, after being compelled to explore the nature of women’s desires, ends up with a beautiful wife and happy marriage.

The images featured in Marisa’s collage come from representations of medieval women, including queens, peasants, fairies, and Celtic figures. The texts she alters include Chaucer’s words, as well as adaptations and rewritings of The Canterbury Tales. Marisa’s work focuses attention on the knight’s crime and his victim, which are ultimately set aside in “The Knight’s Tale.” She writes, “I want the viewer to ask, is that justice?” If you would like to read Marisa’s full explanation of her creation click here.