​on being unconventional, assertive, sexual, strong, funny, confident, competent, opinionated, and independent

Don't you love people like this? I do, too. They are at home in their bodies and fully themselves. I am talking, of course, about Alison, the character in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. usually called The Wife of Bath. I am also talking about her creative transformation by the British poet, Patience Agbabi, into the Wife of Bafa. What interests me is Agbabi's performance of the Wife of Bafa, her reimagining of the original character, and the difference both wives can make to women and others whose voices are silenced by patriarchy. As a process theologian I can't help but think that even the soul of the universe, even the divine Eros, takes delight in, and is enriched by, the zesty assertiveness of wives who are so much more than "wives."

Patience Agbabi 

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First, a little philosophy: According to the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, our lives unfold moment by moment. In each moment, we inherit from the past actual world, respond to what we receive, and thus create something new. The "many become one and are increased by one." We ourselves are not isolated substances that endure unchanged over time. We are the ongoing process of the many becoming one, moment by moment, as lived from the inside. Always we are new, always we are becoming. It's called process philosophy.

The past actual world includes our own personal history—everything that we have done and experienced—and also the many influences we receive from other people, the natural world, and the products of their creativity. The natural world itself is a diverse collection of elements, from plants and animals to trees and stars, all part of the intricate fabric of existence that is becoming one in our experience. Stories and tales shared by others are also woven into this tapestry as part of what becomes one in us. As we receive stories, they become part of who we are, but we also reimagine them, infusing them with our unique perspective and making them our own.

For Patience Agbabi, these stories include a collection of tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (14th century), a classic of English literature known as The Canterbury Tales, which follows a diverse group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury Cathedral in England. Each pilgrim tells a tale on the journey, offering a blend of humor, social commentary, and personal narrative that has resonated with readers throughout the ages. I read The Canterbury Tales in high school.

Among the pilgrims in "The Canterbury Tales" is a vivacious and memorable character known as the Wife of Bath. She is unconventional, assertive, lascivious, strong, funny, confident, competent, opinionated, and independent. She defies societal norms with her assertive nature and candid approach to matters of love and marriage.

Agbabi has retold "The Canterbury Tales" as a whole in her book "Telling Tales" (2014) and, in the process, reimagined the Wife of Bath as a Nigerian woman living in London, renaming her the Wife of Bafa. She is a successful businesswoman running a hair salon and has had five husbands. In her rap-like style, Agbadi blends English and Nigerian Pidgin to tell the character's story.

Moving back to metaphysics, or perhaps better, theology: In creating the Wife of Bafa, Agbabi embodies what process theologians, influenced by Whitehead, call "creative transformation." This transformation occurs when we take the influences received from the past and transform them into novel actualities in the present, providing hope for the future. The Wife of Bath is creatively transformed into the Wife of Bafa.
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Process theologians believe that there is a cosmic dimension to this transformation. The very mind of the universe, the divine Eros. is a lure within each person to creatively transform what is received into something new. What is received may itself be good, as Chaucer's Wife of Bath is inspiring to many, including many feminists today. But she cannot remain static; she is resurrected in being reimagined and tailored to new circumstances. The creativity of the past is re-created in the present, and something new is added. Agbabi is her co-creator.
  

* Born in London in 1965 to Nigerian parents, Agbabi spent her teenage years living in North Wales and currently resides in Gravesend, Kent. She has been recognized as one of the Poetry Book Society's 'Next Generation' poets in 2004 and was appointed Canterbury Poet Laureate in 2010. Her collections include "Bloodshot Monochrome" (2008) and "Telling Tales" (2014), the latter being a contemporary take on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which was shortlisted for The Poetry Society's 2014 Ted Hughes Award.

Performing the Wife of Bafa
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THE WIFE OF BAFA - POEM

My name is Mrs Alice Ebi Bafa.
I come from Nigeria.
I'm very fine, isn't it.
My next birthday I'll be…twenty-nine.
I'm business woman.
Would you like to buy some cloth?
I've all the latest styles from Lagos,
Italian shoe and handbag to match,
lace, linen and Dutch wax.
I only buy the best
and I travel first class.
    
Some say I have blood on my hands
'cause I like to paint my nails red
but others call me femme fatale.
My father had four wives
so I've had five husbands.
I cast a spell with my gap-toothed smile
and my bottom power.
Three were good and two were bad.
    
The first three were old and rich
and I was young and fit.
They died of exhaustion.
The fourth one was ladies' man.
I could not count his women on one hand
but he'd rage if I looked at another man.
I was very wild when I was young.
They called me Miss Highlife,
I was not considered a good wife
but I always respected my husband.
He died when I returned from this London.
    
The fifth one I married for love.
He was studying law at University of Ibadon.
He was not yet twenty-one,
wicked in bed and so handsome
but he liked pornographic magazine.
His favourite was Playboy.
One day I threw it on fire
to teach him a lesson.
He turned into wife batterer.
He was to regret his action.
I beat him till be begged for his ancestors.
Now we get on like house on fire.
    
Some say I'm a witchcraft
'cause I did not bear them children.
They do not understand your Western medicine.
    
You like my headtie.
It's the latest fashion.
They sell like hot cake on Victoria Island.
Fifty pounds.
I give you discount 'cause I like your smile.
The quality is very good.
If I take off more I will not make profit
and I travel to Lagos next week.
Make it my lucky day.
Please, I beg you.

​Patience Agbaba reflects on her Poem

​By 'translating' Middle English into Nigerian English, I hoped to retain an earthiness and an otherness, that standard English would tame. I also wanted to maintain the humour. At one point I use a more direct translation. My line:

Three were good and two were bad.
     The first three were old and rich..

echoes the lines in The Wife of Bath's Prologue:

  'As thre of hem were goode, an two were badde.
   The thre were goode men, and riche, and olde;'

Although The Wife of Bafa is very Nigerian, she shares many characteristics of Chaucer's original. She's a lascivious woman with a gap-toothed smile and big hips who has had five husbands. She is an independent woman who travels. The red stockings were easily transformed to red nails (with the suggestion of foul play for outliving four husbands). 

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This is the first time I've changed a poem from one published version to the next. I generally believe that a writer must let go of the work once it's in print but the reality is, I perform about a third of my work so I never really let go of it. This version is most faithful to the performed version but in reality, it's impossible to pin down the punctuation of a poem that changes subtly each time it's delivered. Thankfully, in spite of publication, visual reading also varies. The Wife of Bath continues to be translated in the mind of the reader.

 * Patience Agbabi, for the British Council, click here

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Feminism and the Wife of Bath
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A Discussion on BBC Radio 3

​with Patience Agbabi, Marion Turner and Hetta Howes

​"Chaucer's widow and clothmaker is one of three characters given a longer confessional voice than other pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales and she uses her narrative to ask who has had the advantage in setting out the stories of women - "Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?" Shahidha Bari explores both the roots and the influence of Chaucer's creation and the different modern versions created by writers including Zadie Smith and Caroline Bergvall. Her guests are Marion Turner, author of The Wife of Bath: A Biography, Patience Agbabi who reimagines this timeless character as a Nigerian businesswoman in her poem The Wife of Bafa, and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes."

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