182-256 Flashcards
Jans own voice
Use the device of January addressing his friends to give the reader for the access to the characters voice
“Not only for paramours or love” “ she shall Nat passe twenty yeres” “ should lede my lyf in avoutrye”
The irony in January speech is achieved by the opposition about the religious marriage and the imagery he employs when fantasising about his wife to be
-She must be young to satisfy him sexually and to avoid adultery which is forbidden in the 10 Commandments and therefore a sure path to hell
“ ne children should’ve i none upon hire get “ “ hir deter”
-he also wishes to conceive children to provide himself with heirs
-Sex is viewed as a necessary duty or “debt” that each partner owes the other it is the pious purpose of marriage
- back in the day marriage was seen for men to secure as to have someone to leave all of his inheritance and lands to
-and women were expected to provide men with heirs
“Younge flesh” “tender veel”
A wife is to be bought owned and consumed. It’s the imagery of purchasing food.
-food imagery is also closely connected with sex and January is presented as an epicurean
-A follower of Epicurious the ancient Roman scholar
-Devoting his life to the pursuit of physical pleasure
“Predatory pike”
The phallic imagery
-suggests he is a pike
“ i wol no womman thirty year of age” “ forage”
Old women he dismisses unacceptable and presented as equivalent to leftovers after the harvest useful is only food and bedding for animals
-Similarly in the wife of baths prologue she devalues the mature women saying she must sell the ‘bran’ as best she can as the ‘flour is gone”
- Chaucer leaves room for the reason to develop sympathy for the the woman’s case
-therefore is January’s haste to marry because of fear for impending death in hell or is he in lather of sexual anticipation?
Proverbs: “pykethan a pickerel” “ bet than olde beef os the tender veel”
-“in thyne house endure”- merchant
These proverbs are homely rhetoric and low style to make fun of pretentious and ignorant January
-When he argues this the use of these proverbs expose preposterous and limited imagination
-The reader is also aware of the underlying proverbial wisdom which is set up in a position to January. The narrator has already warned. “ a wife will last and in thyne house endure”
-
“Right as men may warm wex with hands ply”
-proleptic
- similie
This simile is proleptic as wax features in the tail later as may make a mould of the key to the garden to give access to her secret lover and the consequence adultery takes place in a fruit tree
-again fit the antifeminist theme
Playing implies force and dominance portraying men is active shapers and women is passive materials to be manipulated
-Fits in with January’s view of marriage as a transaction where he requires a young docile wife to serve his needs.
-Reflects mediaeval misogynistic beliefs that women should conform to their husbands will
-However it’s heavily ironic as it becomes clearer that may deceive January proving she’s not passive or easily controlled
Reflects how general views marriage as a means of creating his perfect wife
-The dehumanisation of women was commonly mediaeval anti-feminist literature reinforcing male dominance
-It foreshadows the subversion of male authority showing that women cannot be so easily manipulated
-It does imply temporary malleability hinting at the inevitable failure of control over May.
“ i fare as dooth as a tree that blossom er that fruit ywoxen bee ‘
Judges comparison of himself to a fruit tree blooming ,apparently miraculously, an old age refers outside the poem to the apocryphal legend of how old Joseph came to be betrothed-to young Mary with a rather different outcome
- The story of Mary’s patrolled to the old Joseph is threaded through the tail and January and May share the same initial
-The story goes in this time the old Joseph was presented himself at a temple as an unwilling suitor for Mary but the rod he carried suddenly and miraculously bloomed in his old age
- January is not an unwilling suit to put describes himself as a tree miraculously blooming in his old age.
-When Joseph returned and found pregnant, he was first minded to not believe her account of the angels visit and to abandon her and his doubts had to be corrected by an angel
Fabio stories show gullible girls persuading into adultery or gullible husbands returning from a period of absence and persuaded that the wives unexpected pregnancies are of supernatural origin
-similarly with Me how she offers an implausible explanation of what was happening in the pear tree
“That woot namoore of it than woo my page”
January complains that those who wrote these generalisations about marriage no as little as his page boy
-Again ironically anticipating Damien sexual success with.
