themes/context Flashcards
(7 cards)
The characters
Januarie is the only character who is allowed to develop anything approaching an inner life
Damyan is described only in wholly conventional terms so he never develops as an individual and simply becomes a function of the plot
May is characterised largely by what is not said of her and any assumption she is ‘sex mad’ has no positive foundation in the text
Other characters in the tale are personification allegories - Placebo and Justinus representing the abstract properties of good and bad advice drawn from a court of satire
Marriage
Marriage was rarely undertaken for love and was done out of consolidation of title, land and money.
Once married a women had the same legal status as her husband’s domestic animals - The Goodman of Paris stated “she must be like a dog on the road, at table and in bed”
Conventional attitudes to the institute of marriage were very close to Januarie although it offers opportunities for satire in a tale told by The Merchant
Anti-Feminism
St Jerome was the ultimate authority on women in the Middle Ages and stated marriage was at best, a necessary evil
The voice given to Chaucers Merchant lies squarely within the tradition of misogyny and the Wife of Bath is designed as a divining example of the kind of wife warned against in the treaties.
Everything in marriage turns to torment for the man, wether his wife is beautiful or ugly, rich or poor
The wide-spread male assertion in the anti-feminism tradition is that women are inferior beings not worthy of having anyway
Christian theology
The problem for women dominated by Christian theology interpreted by celibate men was twofold
The later events in Januaries garden are primarily burlesque deriving most of its meaning from the Genesis story
When Januarie strokes Mays womb he is like Joseph - happily reconciled with a women bearing a child who is not his (Virgin Mary)
Calendars and Astrology
The tale develops a calendrical theme suggesting that winter should not attempt to marry early summer
Januaries natural habitat is indoors; he looses control when the action moves to the garden
The four days May spends indoors represents the four moths between them M&J
The adultery takes place in the month of May - associated with hunting, hawking and pursuits associated with courtly love
Damyan is indirectly associated with fate of the scorpion - Scorpios rule male genitals
The suggestion that events have been brought by nature or the stars point towards an attempt to elevate an obscene fabliau by giving it a moralised universal meaning - the marriage of old age and youth is an unnatural conjunction
Blindness
A common theme is literature because of its metaphorical potential, connecting the physical faculty of sight with moral and spiritual vision
The Merchant suggests that January has always been blind - blind to the risks of his choice of bride, blind to the sacramental nature of marriage and ultimately physically blind
Food imagery
