The Merchant's Tale Critics Quotes

Question 1

Quote about authority?

Answer 1

‘The whole notion of authority seems to be parodied in this poem concerned with unsteady fortune and false reputation’ - Peter Ackroyd

Question 2

Quote about London?

Answer 2

‘London had become the vortex for mercantile activity’ - Peter Ackroyd

Question 3

Quote about marriage?

Answer 3

‘Mock - encomium of marriage’ - Pearsall

Question 4

Quote about voice?

Answer 4

‘The voice of the mal - marie’ - Pearsall

Question 5

Marriage as a purchase?

Answer 5

‘January shops for his bride’ - Stephanie Tolliver

Question 6

The diverse nature of the text?

Answer 6

‘heterogeneity’ - Ackroyd

Question 7

Qualities of Chaucer?

Answer 7

‘a contemporary ironist and satirist’ - Ackroyd

Question 8

How nationality is presented?

Answer 8

‘smiling emblem of Englishness’ - Ackroyd

Question 9

What Chaucer leaves behind?

Answer 9

‘invisible man who leaves only the breath of good humour behind’ - Ackroyd

Question 10

The two worlds that Chaucer was on the cusp of?

Answer 10

‘He was poised between the courtly poet […] and the self conscious literary artist’ - Ackroyd

Question 11

How is Chaucer’s perspective weaved into the tale?

Answer 11

‘he chooses to hide behind his words and allows his personality to be dissolved within them, he shifts the blame’ - Ackroyd

Question 12

How the tale acts as a burlesque?

Answer 12

‘a ludicrous parody of courtly love’ - Sheila Innes

Question 13

What could Chaucer not maintain?

Answer 13

‘he could not maintain a high style when his instinctive comedy kept breaking through’ - Ackroyd

Question 14

Where was Chaucer?

Answer 14

‘Chaucer was at the centre of events at a time of huge instability eg - the election of the two rival popes in the election of 1378’ - Ackroyd

Question 15

How does Chaucer make the tale more real?

Answer 15

‘By placing himself within the narrative, however, Chaucer renders the poem more real and more credible’ - Ackroyd

Question 16

May is in a subservient position to Januarie?

Answer 16

‘his willing sex slave’ - John Hathaway

Question 17

What is Januarie a victim of?

Answer 17

‘Januarie has become a victim of his own desires’ - John Hathaway

Question 18

What type of story?

Answer 18

‘Modern black comedy’ - Pearsall

Question 19

What the affair is based on?

Answer 19

‘Their sordid little liaison is based on lust’ - Sheila Innes

Question 20

What it mocks?

Answer 20

‘Mocks users of authority’ - Marion Turner

Question 21

What Januarie deserves?

Answer 21

‘Januarie is a joke and deserves our derision’ - Tina Davidson

Question 22

The inevitable victory?

Answer 22

‘Chaucer shows the inevitability of youth’s victory over age’ - Tina Davidson

Question 23

What is May like?

Answer 23

‘feisty and opportunist May’ - Tina Davidson

Question 24

How the merchant speaks?

Answer 24

‘Misogynistic voice of the merchant’ - Bunting

Question 25

Disgust for Januarie?

Answer 25

‘Chaucer creates a comic repulsion of Januarie’ - Bunting

Question 26

Januarie + sex?

Answer 26

‘An old bachelor luxuriating in lechery’ - Meally