Merchant’s Tale AO3 + AO5 Flashcards
(42 cards)
1
Q
Women in medieval England
A
- blushing, subservient brides
- once virtue forfeited in marriage, power and cleanliness associated with Virgin Mary lost, comparable to death as woman left to become a widow to elevate status or embrace role as old crone
- women concerned as a sexual commodity in relationships
2
Q
Bovey
A
‘instructing them to remain silent’
3
Q
Brown
A
‘union of January and May is unnatural… May’s triumph is inevitable’
4
Q
Peel
A
‘Chaucer clearly likes and admires women very much’
5
Q
the Church
A
- very corrupted
- in Catholic England, all were church-going
- medieval sermons delivered mostly in Latin but some in vernacular and drew on biblical passages to illustrate moral lessons, used anecdotes and stories
- saw sex for pleasure as offensive even within marriage, fornication was seen as a great sin and marriage as a holy sacrament
- St Augustus: ‘the only legitimate cause for sex was reproduction, but failure to consummate a marriage was grounds for annulment and if a man was impotent this was grounds for annulment
6
Q
Tatlock
A
‘making May, not worse than January, but hardly a person at all’
7
Q
Fabliau
A
- wealthy, elderly man: marries young woman, comedic situations where he is easily tricked and deceived, focus on sexual exploits, usually cuckolded
- Chaucer subverts by exploring deeper social commentary and giving agency to female characters
8
Q
14th century England
A
- society strictly ordered
- most were illiterate before Caxton’s Printing Press so access to literature was through mystery plays which had religious elements
- love didn’t hold central value in relationships
- cuckoldry was worst fate
9
Q
Vernacular
A
accessible to all rather than French (Court) or Latin (Church)
10
Q
Boccaccio’s Decameron
A
- vernacular
- 10 people told 10 days of tales
- ‘gently bred’ whereas Chaucer’s pilgrims are of different classes
- deceiving wife has an affair, husband catches her and convinces him he is hallucinating
11
Q
Courtly Love
A
- adulterous lovers communicate through secret letters and signs
- May’s initial attributes drawn from classic image of woman in Courtly romance
- lovesick squier = Damian, who is ‘ill’
- Damian does not abide to code of Courtly Lover as acts on his desires instead of suffering in silence and he tells May
- May should also feel pity for him but not give in but she does
12
Q
Merchant’s allusion to Argus
A
100 eyes but still deceived
13
Q
Milton
A
‘love in marriage cannot live or subsist unless it be mutual’
14
Q
Carrington
A
- ‘Chaucer has no over-arching moral or philosophical intention’
- ‘we are left with the disturbing notion that a level of happiness is possible through folly and self-deception’
15
Q
Beidler
A
‘January’s folly is that he sees what he wants to see, rather than what is actually before him’
16
Q
Davidson
A
‘by letting May off the hook Chaucer shows the inevitability of youth’s victory over age’
17
Q
Male gaze
A
empowers men, diminishes women
18
Q
Pearsall
A
‘amoral tale reduces all human behaviour to lust and greed’
19
Q
Aers
A
- ‘January approaches sexual intercourse as a vehicle in which the male ego can confirm its own power in a self-gratifying consumption of the “yong flesshe”’
- ‘leaves readers with no cause to make easy moralistic judgements about May’
- ‘marriage was primarily a transaction organised by males to serve economic and political ends… the useful enjoyment of his new possession’
- ‘women reduced to commodities which the male can purchase’
20
Q
1998 Myerson animated version
A
- Damian has no dialogue
- January ties May to him with a rope
- Venus, Goddess of Love, shown to ignite Damian’s heart with her torch
- single pear falls in front of January during banquet as he brushes all other food aside, symbolising sexual desire and lust. women associated with food and symbolic of use of women as sexual commodity
- pear = phallic symbol. many fall off tree as May and Damian engage in sexual intercourse = loss of innocence, comedic tone
- cross above January and May’s bed = religious influence
- May and January depicted as playing in the garden, as are Pluto and Proserpina = parallels
- January ‘woxen blind’ by apple P+P drop by accident = satirical (Adam and Eve)
- January’s sword he carries shown to stab him in the back after he realises he is blind = foreshadowing
- May walks January into a tree whilst trying to convince him he is hallucinating = portrayed as very deceptive
- May is pregnant at end with Damian’s child
21
Q
Stevens
A
- ‘rooted in physical desire’
- ‘deeply misogynistic, a story trying to show the deceitfulness of women’
22
Q
Hanson
A
‘May is devised out of January’s thoughts, just as Eve was out of Adam’s’
23
Q
Medieval art
A
responsibility of women for ‘original sin’ emphasised by giving female head to serpent who tempts Eve who disobeys God
24
Q
Chivalric tales
A
- Chaucer’s works are more varied in theme and social satire
- featured legendary knights, idealised code of code of chivalric behaviour of loyalty and honour
25
Theophrastus The Golden Book of Marriage
- a wise man shouldn’t take a wife, it will only end badly as she will deceive
- entails how a woman should behave in marriage
26
Tolliver
- ‘the merchant’s misogyny is a product of his marital disillusionment’
- ‘January shops for his bride’
- ‘May is made of masculine fantasy’
27
The rape of Proserpine
Latin myth where Pluto abducted Proserpina
28
Mary and Joseph
- similar names to January and May
- builds upon medieval tradition of ignorant January lamenting his wife’s pregnancy before being reassured it was caused by divine conception (if May is pregnant at the end)
29
Mercantile class
- merchants, traders, shopkeepers gained increasing power in society
- seen as left hand in social body, soldiers were right hand: Latin for left handed was originally sinister (devil)
30
Chaucer
- father was a wine merchant
- born into Bourgeoisie class
- in last 20 years of his life suffered fluctuations in fortune and favour
- granddaughter married at 11 (first of 3 marriages) after he died
31
Hundred Years War
- War for power in France impacted political stability in England and brought about new social order
- Chaucer fought in this war
32
The Black Death
killed up to 1/3 of Europe’s population, particularly affecting lower classes, leading to further tensions as powerful merchant class monopolised traces
33
Deschamps’ Le Mirour de Miriage
- anti-Feminist long satirical poem that inspired Chaucer
- Franc Vouloir listens to arguments by 4 of his friends as to reasons why in his old age he should marry
- misogynistic
- arguably inspired Justinus and Placebo and the frame story narrative allowing both the Merchant and Chaucer to interject with their own views on women
34
Dillon
'deliberately forcing a genre characterised by its amorality into a moral framework'
35
Levy
P+P as the 'cosmic counterparts of January and May'
36
The Wife of Bath
- Feminist tale by Chaucer which focuses on how women can exert power and control, whereas this text exposes the vulnerability and disappointment in marriage
- has perspective of autonomy whereas this text has misogynistic, cynical teller but both serve to criticise this
37
St Paul's 'marital debt'
spouses have the right to receive sexual intimacy from their partner
38
The great chain of being
- strict hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought in medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God
- provided medieval people with the structure they desired
- to maintain stability, everyone needed to fulfil their place in the universe, and to defy this system would cause chaos
39
Tale's setting: Lombardy
- in Medieval times was associated with tyranny and oppressive social and political systems
- Chaucer visited in 1378 on royal duties to negotiate for a possible marriage
40
Benson
'The Merchant's Tale warns us to trust the tale and not the teller'
41
Zedolik
- 'comedic inversion of the unequal dichotomy of husband/wife'
- 'Chaucer the pilgrim-narrator willingly relinquishes control of the narrative and thereby maintains moderate control'
42
Lee
- 'many readers will be ready to forgive her transgression'
- 'Women are repeatedly compared to food and drink in the Tales'
