The Merchant's prologue and tale AO5 Flashcards
Saywood on the genre of the Merchant’s prologue and take
- MCR – fits genre for these reasons - the setting is distant geographically; includes high-born characters; centred around love; often with divine intervention; Garden setting.
- At the time, Pavia wars famous for ‘banking and bonking’ (Saywood’s words) – one of the things that warn us that this is MCR ‘subverted’.
- In Fabliau the comic hero is usually cunning and smart – in this tale, May takes on these attributes.
- It follows on from The Clerk’s Tale but May is the countertype to Griselda.
Peasall on Chaucerian comedy
“no values … are more important than survival or satisfaction of the appetite … the injunction is not ‘be noble’ but ‘be smart’’
Brewer on deceit and status of characters
‘there is deceit in plenty, but no innocents suffer. We need not feel sorry for any of the characters. In so far as the poem is class-specific, it mocks, from Chaucer’s superior position, minor gentry but no characters are in any doubt about their identity and May goes up in the world in several senses.’
what does Mann refer to Pluto as
‘the only Hen-pecked rapist in English Literature’
Mark Williams on the Canterbury Tales and the Merchant
On The Canterbury Tales – ‘Frame Tales’ and ‘Insert Tales’ were a recognized structural device BUT the pilgrimage (partly due to what a normal part of Medieval Christianity they were) allows him to add a different dimension – a cross-section of medieval society. The Merchant’s clothes are (for the time) so ostentatious that they’re seen as slightly tacky/gaudy – he’s aspiring to being socially elite but isn’t. This (along with his secret debts) reveal an important theme, which is carried on in the tale– outward appearance vs inward reality.
Williams on the Clerk’s tale
Williams suggests that, to modern audiences, the Clerk’s Tale is an appallingly misogynistic tale of subjugation and testing of a woman.
Williams’s arguments that significantly relate to religion and opinion at the time
Middle Ages characterized by being ‘hyper-religious’ – Religion was part of all aspects of public and social life.
Universe was believed to be carefully organized (with God at top). Society also had a brutal hierarchy – Women had no role in law or politics at any level.
Two new things in middle ages were banking and international trade.
Sudden explosion of interest and ‘art’ about May – represented all that was good in life.
Astrology was important and (strangely) part of world view (Chaucer had studied it in detail) – January is month of Capricorn (the goat) – ruled by Saturn (God of Old Age) and goat is associated with lust.
Irony when Jan imagines himself as one of the greatest lovers from antiquity – Paris.
Ref to Priapus -God of Gardens but also of male sexuality – is often depicted with an erection.
Rosalind Field’s arguments, which are significantly related to January’s status and privacy
Field argues against other critics, who suggest that January is just an alter-ego of the merchant. For her it is important that he is a prince knight and she suggests that Chaucer is at pains to point this out due to the organization of his household – he has a Marshal of the Hall, May has a number of waiting women, etc
One of the biggest differences between medieval and modern society is the extent to which public and private lives were interwoven, particularly for the nobility – constantly surrounded by servants, the medieval noble was hardly ever alone – not even with their wife. At the time there was a new push for privacy which people felt was a bad thing (as noted in Piers Plowman). She suggests that this tale echoes these concerns about Privacy as January’s secret garden means that the truth about January is never exposed in public.
This (above) and the lack of punishment or revelation at the end (which usually happens in fabliau) along with the themes of blindness and self-deception, reveals a main concern of the tale – it exposes society’s willingness to turn a blind eye to the personal weaknesses of the rich and powerful. She says that January is like his namesake Janus; two-faced.
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – the Parsons Tale is basically a sermon. What quote does the parson say that undermines January?
“and for that a man weneth that he may not synne for no likerousnesse that he dooth with his wyf; certes, that opinion is fals. God woot, a man may sleen himself with his owene knyf.’ (X858)
