The Merchant’s Tale Critics

Question 1

Wife - Aers

Answer 1

AERS: “the wife he has acquired only exists to serve his ego, a totally obedient servant, housekeeper and nurse”.

Question 2

Blindness critic

Answer 2

EMERSON BROWN JR. Rather than learning from his suffering, however, January chooses to live in a self-imposed blindness, as the final lines of the tale reveal.

Question 3

Romance - fabliaux critic

Answer 3

PRISCILLA MARTIN: “Januarie believes he is inhabiting a romance which is finally bitterly exposed as a fabliaux”

Question 4

sex scene critic

Answer 4

king, “Moral Poverty”

Question 5

old age critic

Answer 5

EMERSON BROWN JR.:”persisting in sensuality in old age is the height of stupidity”

Question 6

marriage tmt critic

Answer 6

MARCHANT: “Mercantile, unromantic nature of marriage”
TOLLIVER: ‘January has a strictly mercantile interest in May’
Hussey: “taste of cynism that pervades the discussion of a serious topic - marriage”

Question 7

courtly love affair

Answer 7

innes; “The affair between May and Damian is a ludicrous parody of courtly love…their solid little liaison is based on lust?

Question 8

women tmt

Answer 8

king, “Chaucer’s art is unusual as it leaves some room for the reader to develop sympathy for the woman’s case”

Question 9

May critic

Answer 9

BRONSON: For any one to suppose that May’s self-defense could be intended or expected to be received as damning evidence of the ‘doubleness’ of women, as an honest, although satirical indictment - must be reckoned one of the stranger aberrations of critical judgement.

Question 10

damyan critic

Answer 10

DEREK PEARSALL: Damian is no more than a poodle to this lady dog-trainer