356-404 Flashcards
“Love is blind”
-proverb
-Chaucer uses this To shape his portrait of January as a self-deluding old lecher, who’s blindness to the kind of woman he has chosen anticipates his actual physical blinding
- Ironic on the surface it’s endorses the notion that love is an overwhelming irrational force in this context. It also serves as a critique suggesting January decision is not based on informed judgement but rather on fanciful uncritical idealisation.
“Bisynesse”
-Suggests an unhealthy obsession with sex and choosing his wife as if he will buy meat considering the available local women as goods in the marketplace
“ whoso took a mirour polished bright” “ hir fresh beauty” “ hir age tender “hir middle small”
The image of a mirror
-Common place in literature of the time with art is promoted as a mirror of reality in a number of ways
-The mirror is in January’s imagination however making him a mental voyeur secretly googling the local young women
-The anti-feminist book on which choice of draws most extensively in the tail is a work by French contemporary eustace deschamps entitled le miroir de marriage
- Reflecting a very different picture of women from that which is depicted as passing through January’s head at this juncture
- The book includes a list of the employees used by a woman when her husband will not give her what she wants or how she will deceive him and tell everything in marriage terms to the torment for the man whether his wife is beautiful or ugly rich or poor
- The list of attractions he finds in this available talent compliments the list of vices projected by justice in the proceeding passage
- He considers beauty, popularity and reputation finally settling on one who’s attributes are drawn from the classic picture of a desirable woman in court romance
“ fresh beauty, her middle small her tender age” “heigh fantasye”
-She’s young and beautiful with a narrow waist long slender arms etc
- He’s very pleased with himself but the quality of his choice is immediately undercut when it’s described as a fantasy by the narrator January having heard only the advice he wanted to hear now whe seems only what he wants to see
-In this period marriage was often seen as a pragmatic arrangement rather than a romantic union
-January is careful weighing of qualities like beauty welcome reputation mirrors the real world calculations involved in marital alliances
-detention between ideal love and heart reality is a recurrent theme in mediaeval literature
-The theme of Courtney Love was celebrated unattainable and idealised affection the merchant tale subvert this idea exposing the potential absurdities and contradictions of facing one’s marital choice on such elusive standards
“Cheers hire of his owene aucoritee”
He has ignored all the advice he was given and made his own choice by himself
-Again highlighting his self delusion metaphorical blindness and foreshadowing his eventual physical blindness
“ fair visage” “fair shape”
The mirror only symbolises the multiplicity of options available but also suggest the illusion nature of these reflection
-each fair visage and fair shape is a fleeting image implying that beauty and virtue as proceed in his mind maybe more matter of appearance than a substance
‘Mirour polisshed” “
The act of reflection highlights the idea of idealisation
- The mirrors polished surface hints at an idealised version of reality justice January internal deliberations produce an image of the perfect wife. They may not correspond of the complexities of real life and real marriage.
“Sadness (Soberness) and hire benignity (goodness”
‘Own aucoritee”
-The formal court language reflects the societal values of the time
-Marriage was not Private affair but public
-Thus January decision decision-making process complete with a catalogue of virtues reflects contemporary concerns with reputation and social order
