The Merchant’s Tale
by
Geoffrey Chaucer
A level English Student Tasks
by
Gerry Ellis
~ Wessex Publications ~
CONTENTS
Using the Workbook....................................................................... 1
'The Canterbury Tales' .................................................................... 2
Chaucer's Life and Character.......................................................... 4
Chaucer – The Man ........................................................................ 7
Reading Chaucer............................................................................. 8
Portrait of the Merchant from the 'General Prologue'
to the Canterbury Tales................................................................... 12
Portrait of The Merchant from the Prologue to 'The
Merchant's Tale' .......................... ................................................... 13
'The Merchant's Tale' - line by line................................................. 14
The Theme of Marriage in The Canterbury Tales.......................... 29
The Conventions of Medieval Courtly Love ................................ 32
Januarie's Character ....................................................................... 34
The Poetry of ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ ............................................ 37
Chaucer's Sources .......................................................................... 40
Examination and Revision Questions............................................. 43
The Merchant’s Tale
Using the Workbook
USING THE WORKBOOK
This Workbook examines various aspects of The Merchant's Tale and
you will be asked to complete tasks on each of these areas as you
progress through the different sections. All the tasks are designed to
help you look carefully as The Tale and to come to an appreciation of
its meaning and significance as a piece of literature. In addition to
working in the Workbook itself, it is advisable to keep your own, fuller
notes, in a notebook or ring binder. These will be an important revision
aid if you are going to answer on this text in an exam.
Some of the tasks require quite short answers and, where this is the
case, a box is provided in the Workbook where you can write down
your responses if you wish.
Where you see this notebook symbol though, a fuller response is
required and it would be best if you write your comments or answers
in your own notebook or file.
At the end of the Workbook you will find a number of specimen
questions of the kind that you might find set for A-level English
Literature (or an examination of similar standard). These titles and
questions would also be suitable for coursework assignments on this
text. If you are going to answer on this text in an exam it would be
very useful to practise writing answers to several of these and have
some idea of how you would tackle any of them.
Good luck with your studies.
NOTE:
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All references in this workbook refer to the edition of
The Merchant’s Tale published by Cambridge
University Press and edited by M. Hussey.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Canterbury Tales
THE CANTERBURY TALES
The Renaissance, which began in Italy, had multiple effects on all
branches of art and learning in the medieval world, not least that of
literature. Chaucer was indeed influenced by the most important
writers of Italy - Dante and Boccaccio.
DANTE (1265 - 1321) A Florentine at the
centre of the Renaissance in Italy. His
‘Divina Commedia’ (Divine Comedy) was to
have a profound influence on the
development of literature in the Western
World. In this allegorical masterpiece his
protagonist goes on a search for God through
Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.
Dante and His Work
by Domenico di Michelino, 1465
Boccaccio (1313 - 1375) Another Florentine
of the Renaissance period. His ‘Decameron’
almost certainly sowed the seed for the idea
of the Canterbury Tales in Chaucer. In the
'Decameron' one hundred short stories,
ranging from the bawdy to the earnest, record
the exodus of ten young Florentines from
their plague-ridden city. Chaucer also uses
Boccaccio's story ‘Ameto’ as the source of
the scene in which Januarie is bedded with
May in the ‘Merchant’s Tale’.
Boccaccio,
detail of a
fresco by
Andrea del
Castagno (c.
1421-57)
Dante contributed to the intense reverence for all things holy which
underlies all Chaucer’s shrewdness and humour; and Chaucer almost
certainly took the very idea for the ‘Canterbury Tales’, of which 'The
Merchant’s Tale' forms an integral part, from Boccaccio’s
‘Decameron’. But, with his usual genius for building on his sources of
ideas, Chaucer draws his characters from all classes while Boccaccio's
come only from one class. Moreover, Chaucer has his characters on a
pilgrimage to Canterbury, each telling a story to while away the time
taken for this journey, and this allows for the introduction of the main
characters and incidents on the way. This gives scope for much more
variety, and for keeping more closely in touch with actual life, than is
possible in the Decameron.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Canterbury Tales
With the 'Canterbury Tales' narrative art is at the point of becoming
drama. The tales present a company of distinct and individual people
talking. The tales are a part of themselves and their talk, so that the
interest is not simply in the tale but at the same time in the teller, and
in the tale as characteristic of the teller. This is very true of 'The
Merchant’s Tale' and its narrator.
The 'Canterbury Tales' constitute the ‘Human Comedy’ of the Middle
Ages. The tone of Chaucer’s company of English folk is, as a whole,
one of jollity. No attempt is made to lessen the weaknesses inherent in
many of the pilgrims, the Merchant and the characters in his Tale
included. Yet, ultimately, the divine order is not felt to be disturbed
and the treatment of those ‘evil’ characters is always steady. Life in its
reality both good and evil - is accepted as exactly what it is observed to
be. The generous tolerance, so central to much of English Literature, is
set on its course.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Chaucer’s Life and Character
CHAUCER'S LIFE AND CHARACTER
It is important to know something of Chaucer’s life in order to
understand the makings of the man. A man able to detail for us the
whole ‘Human Comedy’ of the Middle Ages.
Read the following account of the life of Chaucer and produce a spider
diagram (or a brief summary) in your file to show the key experiences
which may have contributed to his being able to give such a varied
picture of the lives lived by his fellow countrymen at the time. A couple
of points are included to get you started.
Brought up in wine trade - London (mixed with merchant class)
Prisoner in French Wars (1359)
(French influence on poetry)
CHAUCER
BACKGROUND
His Life
Born c1340
Childhood
Not a lot is known about Chaucer and it has to be pointed out that, ‘The
biography of Chaucer is built upon doubts and thrives upon
perplexities’, but, nevertheless, there is enough known to provide a
useful series of benchmarks.
His date of birth provides a first 'doubt' but is generally agreed to be
1340.
He was born in London to John Chaucer and his wife Agnes. His father
was a vintner, and Chaucer certainly has a close knowledge of the wine
trade, as is frequently evidenced in the Canterbury Tales particularly in
the Pardoner’s warning:
‘Now kepe yow fro the white and fro the rede, (276-284)
And namely fro the white wyn of Lepe,
That is to selle in Fisshstrete or in Chepe,
This wyn of Spaigne crepeth subtilly
In othere wines, growinge faste by,
Of which ther riseth swich fumositee
That whan a man hath dronken draughtes thre,
And weneth that he be at hoom in Chepe,
He is in Spaigne, right at the toune of Lepe.’.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Education
Chaucer appears
in royal accounts
Chaucer’s Life and Character
There is little evidence about his education but it is very probable that he
became attached to the Court. The reign of Edward III witnessed a
marked increase in the prosperity of the merchant class and there was
nothing surprising in making a vintner’s son one of the household of
Elizabeth, wife of the King’s son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence in 1357.
Also, in 1357 royal accounts reveal that Geoffrey Chaucer was
provided with ‘a paltok’ (cloak), a pair of red and black breeches and a
pair of shoes valued at three shillings. The Tales give abundant proof
that their author had a keen eye for the niceties of dress and fashion, as
witnessed in his description of the Pardoner
‘Him thoughte he rood al of the newe jet;
Dischevelee, save his cappe, he rood al bare.’
French wars 1359
In 1359 he served in the French Wars and was taken prisoner. He was
freed in 1360, Edward III paying £16 towards his ransom - he must
have been considered a person of some note at court for this to happen.
Influence of
French poetry
Renaissance man that he was, he was influenced by French erotic
poetry which laid down the elaborate code of duties owed by husband
to wife and lover to mistress and the whole artificial convention which
prescribed unhappy love affairs and revelled in the minute analysis of
over-strained emotion, which he mocks in several of the tales.
Becomes valet in
King's Chamber
Returning to Court he became a valet of the King’s Chamber which
gave him ample opportunity to acquire an understanding of the
workings of court life. For a time he continued as a member of the
King’s own household.
Probably married
c1366
It’s probable that Chaucer married Philippa, one of the 'damsels' of the
Queen’s Chamber c1366. Her sister was the wife of John of Gaunt, one
of Chaucer’s patrons. Attempts have been made to show that the
marriage was unhappy. But the 'shrewish wife' was a stock comic
convention of the medieval world, and, very much a man of his time,
Chaucer was quite prepared to use this convention in several of his
tales. Both the Merchant, and the Host himself, suffered from such
wives.
1368 - Esquire to
Royal Household
1370 - abroad
1372 - 73 in Italy
In 1368 he was promoted to be an Esquire of the royal household, a
position well suited to the life of a poet as its duties included ‘piping or
harpinge’ to help entertain the Court.
Chaucer was consistently favoured by John of Gaunt and in 1370 he
was sent abroad on an important mission, the exact nature of which is
not known. His travels take him to France and Flanders.
He travels to Italy. He visits Genoa and Florence, the then centre of the
Renaissance, (the land of Boccaccio and Dante - whose influence on
Chaucer, was considerable). He meets the Italian poet Petrarch.
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The Merchant’s Tale
1374 Controller of
Customs and moves
into house in
Aldgate
1375 - Wardship
Peace missions
1382 - Controller
of Petty Customs
1386 Enters
Parliament
1387 Loses
Controllership and
wife dies
Chaucer’s Life and Character
His fortunes grow and he is made Controller of Customs for Wool in
the Port of London in 1374 which inevitably brought him into contact
with a whole range of different people. He is also granted, in 1374, a
lease for life by the Corporation of the City of London of the house
over the Aldgate gate where he lived till 1385.
He is granted the Wardship of Edmund Staplegate in Kent in 1375
which brings him £103.
In 1377 he was sent to France as part of a mission to seek,
unsuccessfully, bringing about a marriage between the young King
Richard II and the daughter of the King of France. He goes on an
embassy to Italy in the same year. He was, obviously, a diplomat of
some standing.
In 1382, to his Controllership of Wool, is added that of Petty Customs.
Again, inevitably, he becomes more and more aware of the methods
and activities and the types of those involved in trade.
Already a Justice of the Peace, meeting those whose activities were
beyond the law, he enters Parliament as one of the Knights of the Shire
of Kent.
With John of Gaunt in Spain, and his brother, the Duke of Gloucester,
gaining ascendancy over the King, Chaucer loses his Controllerships
and then, in 1387 his wife dies. His life was not one of continuous
success, he knew what it is to be out of favour and to suffer personal
tragedy.
1389 Back in favour Gloucester falls in 1389 and Chaucer is once more in favour. He
becomes Clerk of the Works to the King, which gives him charge of
the fabric of the Tower, Westminster Palace, Windsor Castle and other
royal residences. In 1390 he was entrusted with the repairing of St
George’s Chapel, Windsor.
1391- Loses
position
He loses the position of Clerk to the Works in 1391 and suffers all the
indignities inherent on having money problems. These continued up to
his death.
Henry IV grants
him a pension
Henry IV, on his accession in 1399, secures his future somewhat by
giving him a pension. (It was with the backing of the Earl of Derby,
later Henry IV, during the 1390s that Chaucer retained favour at court
and wrote his most famous work ‘The Canterbury Tales’.)
Dies 25 Oct 1400
He was unable to enjoy his good fortune as he dies in 1400.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Chaucer – The Man
CHAUCER – THE MAN
Self-description
Numerous passages in his works reveal Chaucer as a man of
cheerful and genial nature, full of freshness and humour, a keen
observer of people and, at the same time, an enthusiastic student of
books. In his ‘Prologue to Sir Thopas’ he describes himself as:
•
•
Chaucer, portrait
miniature painted after
the poet's death.
•
a ‘large’ i.e. somewhat corpulent man, and no ‘poppet’ to
embrace;
having an ‘elvish’ or abstracted look, often staring at the
ground ‘as if he would find a hare’;
‘doing no dalliance’ to any man i.e. not entering briskly into
casual conversation.
His love of reading and nature
His numerous references and quotations show that he was deeply read
in all medieval learning and well acquainted with Latin, French and
Italian. In his ‘Hous of Fame’ he tells how he had ‘set his wit to make
books, stories and ditties in rime’, and how often his head ached at
night with writing in his study. He tells also how, when he had done
his official work for the day and ‘made his reckonings’, he used to go
home and become wholly absorbed in his books 'hearing neither this
nor that', and thus ‘he lived like a hermit, though (unlike a hermit) his
abstinence was but little’. His love of nature, as he tells us in ‘The
Prologue to the Legend of Good Women' , was such that ‘when the
month of May is come, and I hear the birds sing and see the flowers
springing up, farewell then to my book and to my devotion to reading'.
Womanhood and manhood
In many passages he insists on the value of the purity of womanhood
and the nobility of manhood, taking the latter to be dependent upon
good feeling and courtesy. As he says in ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’,
‘The man who is always the most virtuous, and most endeavours to be
constant in the performance of gentle deeds, is to be taken as the
greater gentleman. Christ desires that we should derive our gentleness
from Him, and not from our ancestors, however rich.’
Thus we can see that the Merchant-narrator and his hero, Januarie, are
far removed from his ideal man, a man whose every action is governed
by notions of gentilesse, or true nobility.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Reading Chaucer
READING CHAUCER
The reading of Chaucer is an easier task than it appears at first sight. It
is not written in a foreign language, it is written in English and
therefore it is incorrect to talk about ‘translating’ Chaucer; this
language is simply our own language as it was spoken and written six
hundred years, or so, ago. Over the centuries Chaucer’s Middle
English, as it is called, has simply evolved and developed into the
modern English used today. In fact, much of what Chaucer wrote
remains quite easily recognisable for the careful modern reader.
Why read Chaucer?
Students frequently ask, “Why read Chaucer with his difficult Middle
English, when there is a wealth of modern English to be read and
studied?” To realise Chaucer’s unique importance it is necessary to
understand the following:
(1)
the development of the English language - by the middle of the
14th century it needed only that there should arise one writer
great enough to establish one dialect, or combination of dialects,
from the several in use, for standard English to be established.
This creation of language from dialect we owe in large measure
to Chaucer who can justly be claimed as the ‘Father of English’,
an English which combined French elegance and feminine
delicacy; Latin scholarship; and English earthiness and
masculine strength.
The English of Old English, that of the ‘Ancren Riwle’ of
‘Beowulf’ and ‘Sir Gawayne’ is practically a foreign language,
but Chaucer’s English, full as it may be of old and decayed
terms, in fact, presents few real difficulties. Of course, you will
have to look up the odd word in the glossary, and will be puzzled
by some of the astronomical or chemical terms, but these should
not be a huge stumbling block to understanding.
(2)
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the development of English literature - Chaucer’s unique
greatness extends beyond his contribution to the development of
the English language. He was a remarkable innovator as regards
the development of English Literature and it is, equally, also just
to claim him as the ‘Father of English Literature’. He adapted
certain modes, themes, and conventions of French and Italian
medieval poetry to English poetry for the first time. But he was a
still more remarkable innovator than that. He developed the art
of literature itself beyond anything to be found in French or
Italian, or any other medieval literature. In ‘Troilus and
Criseyde’ he gave the world what is virtually the first modern
novel and in ‘The Canterbury Tales’ he developed his art of
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The Merchant’s Tale
Reading Chaucer
poetry still further towards drama and towards the art of the
novel.
(3)
the quality of his work - Finally, Chaucer’s Tales are highly
entertaining, lively, amusing and original. They are about life
and about people; they are universal stories and for all time.
Sum up Chaucer’s unique contribution to the development of both the
English Language and its Literature.
Getting started with ‘The Merchant’s Tale’
Begin
Begin by reading the Tale straight through at a leisurely pace and do
not try to look up every word at this stage. Above all try to listen to the
poetry; it was intended to be read aloud. If you are able to read it
aloud, follow the spelling phonetically. Spelling was not fixed in
Chaucer’s time and it seems certain that the scribes of his day would
have spelt phonetically.
Pronunciation
The pronunciation of Chaucer’s English was not our own, but the main
thing to remember in pronouncing it is that it should be pronounced
metrically. This is made much easier because Chaucer wrote in
rhyming couplets, for example:
‘For wel I woot it fareth so with me
I have a wyf, the worste that may be.’
(Lines 5 - 6)
For this purpose it has to be recognised that the ‘---e’ ending of many
words was generally pronounced as in the above example (except
when the succeeding word begins with a vowel).
TASK 1
Here are the first eight lines of the Merchant’s Prologue, write down in
the box below (or in your file) as much as you can understand of them,
leaving a space for any words that cause you problems.
‘Weping and wailing, care and oother sorowe
I knowe ynogh, on even and a -morwe,
Quod the Marchant, ‘and so doon other mo
That wedded been. I trowe that it be so
For wel I woot it fareth so with me,
I have a wyf, the worste that may be
For thogh the feend to hire ycoupled were,
She wolde him overmacche, I dar wel swere’
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(1)
(8)
The Merchant’s Tale
Reading Chaucer
Whatever you wrote you would have to agree that much of Chaucer’s
original 'English' is already familiar if you consider it at a leisurely
pace. As confidence grows and you become more willing to apply a
modern word order you will find it easier to handle Chaucer’s English.
With help from a colleague, or your tutor if needs be, and using the
box below, try to put lines 1 - 8 of the Merchant’s Prologue into good
modern English.
The following strategies will help you all through your
reading of Chaucer:
• Read the text aloud, if possible, pronouncing the words as they
would be pronounced phonetically and following the metre of the
lines. Take note that the final -e is nearly always pronounced.
• Try not to use the glossary excessively in your first reading, as
this will interrupt your understanding of the whole.
• Take two or three pages at a time and finish at a full stop. Then
and only then, go back over the pages looking up difficult words
and phrases in the glossary and notes.
• If it is your own copy, annotate the text - highlighter pens can be
very useful too.
• Have a modern English ‘translation’ at hand but avoid using it if
possible, especially at the early stages. Going straight to a
‘translation’ will make it harder to get to grips with the original.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Reading Chaucer
• If possible listen to a tape recording of the ‘Tale’ read by a
professional; or listen to any of the Tales that you are able to
obtain. Ask at your local library.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Portrait of The Merchant
THE PORTRAIT OF THE MERCHANT
From ‘The General Prologue’ to ‘The Canterbury Tales’
Chaucer gives a series of thumbnail sketches of his pilgrims in ‘The
General Prologue’.
TASK 2
Read the description of The Merchant in ‘The General Prologue’ and
make your observations of his character as revealed here.
The tone has been set for the Prologue and Tale which follows.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Portrait of The Merchant
THE PORTRAIT OF THE MERCHANT
From ‘The Prologue’ to ‘The Merchant’s Tale’
Lines 1 - 32
TASK 3
Read the ‘Prologue to The Merchant’s Tale’ and make notes in the box
below on the nature of the Merchant’s marriage, and his attitude
towards marriage as a result.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
THE MERCHANT’S TALE (Line by line)
Lines 33 to 54
You are first introduced to the ‘worthy knight’, Januarie, who lives in
Pavia in Lombardy, which was famous for both its bankers and its
brothels, and so a very suitable scene for the Tale which follows. Sixty
years old and unmarried Januarie has been accustomed to ‘folwed ayn
his bodily delyt’ and decides its high time he should be married. He
feels,
‘As doon thise fooles that been seculeer’
(39)
(The word ‘seculeer’ is a crux, i.e. a mystery, which has been the cause
of much discussion amongst Chaucerian scholars, but it’s generally
accepted as meaning ‘layman’)
that he will cultivate his soul under the guise of feeding his bodily lusts
by getting married
‘Were it for hoolinesse or for dotage,
I kan nat say ... ‘
(41-42)
He feels:‘ ... Wedlok is so esy and so clene,
That in this world it is a paradis’
So ‘this olde knight, that was so wis’ decides he must marry
(52-53)
(54)
Irony runs as a constant thread throughout the Tale and is very
apparent in these introductory lines..
TASK 4
In the box below, give four examples of the use of irony from these
lines.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Lines 55 to 185
These lines constitute a long ‘digression’ in which Januarie extols the
virtues of marriage.
TASK 5
Having read the digression give your own view in the Box as to who
actually says these lines, the Merchant or Januarie?
Thus he sees a wife as adding to his wealth. He repeats images of the
monetary value of a wife throughout the ‘digression’ (indeed,
throughout the Tale).
TASK 6
In the next box make a list of these as they appear in this digression.
A wife will give him an heir and happiness impossible for young
bachelors who ‘have often peyne and wo’. Ironic indeed, as the only
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
pain that Damyan suffers is the conventional pain expected of a courtly
lover and the real ‘peyne and wo’ is suffered by Januarie.
A wife will look after him in sickness and in health (and May claims to
be doing just that when she is later found in the pear tree.) He says
some writers consider that marriage is far from perfect, such as
Theophrastus in his ‘Golden Book of Marriage’ where he claims that,
as regards household economy:
‘A trewe servant dooth moore diligence
Thy good to kepe, than thyn owene wyf’
(86-87)
And that it is all too easy for a married man to be cuckolded. In his
unseeing arrogance Januarie dismisses such arguments out of hand. He
continues:
'That womman is for mannes helpe ywroght'
(112)
And with an early mention of the biblical story of Adam and Eve
which will have important echoes later in the Garden of Love, he says
that God, seeing man all alone ‘bely-naked’, created woman as a
helpmate to man. Man and woman living in harmony
‘O flessh they been, and o fleesh, as I gesse,
Hath but oon herte, in wele and in distresse.’
(123-24)
He goes completely ‘over the top’ when he echoes ‘The Clerk’s Tale’
‘A wyf, a Seinte Marie, benedicite’
(125)
A wife will instantly respond without question to her husband and
master’s every command:
‘Al that hire housbonde lust, hire liketh weel;
She seith nat ones ‘nay’, whan he seith ‘ye’.
‘Do this’, seith he; ‘Al redy, sire,’ seith she.’
(132-34)
He introduces a series of biblical exemplars (examples) of ‘good
wives’. All are badly chosen in one sense, but they are appropriate for
Januarie, as they extend the picture we have of him as insensitive and
blind. All of them introduce a note of duplicity and prepare us for the
entry of May into the Tale.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
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Rebecca deceived her blind husband by substituting Jacob for
Esau.
Judith saved her people by deceiving and slaying Holofernes.
Abigail saved her husband but made a later marriage contract
with David.
Esther pleaded the cause of the Israelites and secured the
promotion of Mordecai at the expense of the life of Haman.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Much is revealed of Januarie’s character in this digression. Summarise
what view you have formed of him here.
Lines 187 to 262
His digression over Januarie starts the search for a wife. He sends out
friends in all directions to search for suitable young women. He repeats
that it is fortunate that having spent his body ‘folily’ it is thanks to God
everything can be amended but only if he is married,
‘Unto som mayde fair and tendre of age.’
(195)
He stresses that his future wife will have to be young in one of the
coarse, but exact and powerful similes which Chaucer uses so tellingly:
‘ .... yong flessh wolde I have ful fain.
‘Bet is,’ quod he, ‘a pyk than a pikerel,
And bet than old boef is the tendre veel.’
(206-208)
As per usual he fails utterly to see himself as ‘old boef’, he prefers to
see himself as essentially young, which he expresses in another series
of powerful and evocative similes, which again echo the image of the
pear-tree which is to appear in the love garden and be the site of his
cuckolding. Ironically, the tree he compares himself with here arises
from his delusions just as he is, later, deluded by the events in this
pear-tree in the love garden:‘Though I be hoor, I fare as dooth a tree
That blosmeth er that fruit ywoxen bee;
And blosmy tree nis neither drye ne deed.
I feele me nowhere hoor but on myn heed;
Myn herte and alle my lymes been as grene
As laurer’
TASK 7
(249-254)
These lines reveal clearly Chaucer’s masterly use of imagery. In the
box below list the images used in these lines and discuss, briefly, their
effectiveness.
continues over
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Lines 263 to 364
Januarie is given various views as to whether or not he should marry;
in these lines the dispute about this reaches a climax with his two
brothers Placebo = ‘I shall please’ and Justinus = ‘hard judicious
thinking’, expressing their views.
TASK 8
In the box below summarise the advice of the two brothers. What does
Januarie’s response to this advice show us about him?
continues over
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Lines 365 to 410
In these lines Januarie’s illusions about marriage reach their absurd
height.
TASK 9
In the box below summarise how Chaucer shows Januarie’s total
illusion about marriage and about the true nature of his future bride.
Lines 411 to 483
Januarie considers whether the heaven on earth which he envisages
marriage to be will prevent him reaching Heaven proper. Justinus gives
him an honest answer.
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The Merchant’s Tale
TASK 10
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
In the box below summarise Januarie’s dilemma and Justinus’
response to it.
The brothers then depart well aware that Januarie is totally resolved as
to his course of action, he will marry May.
Lines 484 to 559
The wedding takes place with great solemnity and with true
renaissance colour and style, with the priest ever present. Venus, the
Goddess of Love, dances before the bride, who is so beautiful that
Januarie is ‘ravisshed in a traunce’ (538). Januarie begins to
contemplate his wedding night when he would have May in his arms:
‘Harder than evere Paris dide Eleyne’
(542)
when, in reality, he is much closer to the deserted Menelaus. He fears
that his sexual passion will be too much for her and will overwhelm
her. He wishes his guests were gone and it was night. He attempts:
To haste hem fro the mete in subtil wise’
(555)
Eventually the celebrations do end.
Lines 560 to 582
Chaucer introduces Damyan as a cardboard figure, a stock courtly
lover.
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The Merchant’s Tale
TASK 11
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
In the box below trace how he does this so successfully in the space of
these twenty-two lines
Lines 583 to 653
The wedding ceremony at last being over Januarie prepares for his
wedding night. In spite of all his bold comments about his sexual
prowess and energy, he has to resort to multiple aphrodisiacs to
enhance his performance:
‘He drinketh ypocras, clarree, and vernage
Of spices hoote, t’encreessen his corage’
(595-596)
Moreover he turns for ideas for his lovemaking to a book by ‘the
cursed monk’ Constantine entitled ‘de Coitu’.
With immensely powerful, devastating similes Chaucer shows Januarie
at his most foolish in his lovemaking in these lines.
TASK 12
Record these in the box over the page.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Lines 654 to 719
The picture of Damyan who ‘languissheth’ for love continues still in
suitably overblown language:
‘This sike Damyan in Venus fyr
So brenneth that he dieth for desir’
(664-65)
Continuing to meet the requirements of a courtly lover he writes a love
letter to May. When May is, once more, able to join in with the full
company in Januarie’s Hall, it comes to Januarie’s notice that Damyan
is missing. With genuine concern (Januarie is presented as a much
more rounded character than the other stereotypes. Chaucer certainly
shows him having redeeming qualities) he inquires if he is ill. When
told he is, he immediately makes arrangements to have him looked
after as:
‘He is a gentil squier, by my trouthe’
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(695)
The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
The irony is complete when Januarie sends May to visit the sick squire
saying he will visit him later.
Lines 720 to 776
The conventional love-pact is made between May and Damyan. He
hands her his love-letter, secretly, and she hides it, as to be expected, in
her bosom. The unsavoury nature of the liaison is summed up very
appropriately when May retires to:
‘Ther as ye woot that every wight moot neede;
And whan she of this bille hath taken heede,
She rente it al to cloutes atte laste,
And in the privee softely it caste.’
(739-742)
The unsavoury note continues as Januarie, awoken by a cough, forgets
all question of delicacy in love making and simply:
‘Anon he preyde hir strepen hire al naked’
(746)
because her clothes are proving an encumbrance to his love making.
She obeys, ‘be hir lief or looth’ - Januarie takes his ‘maistrye’ for
granted little knowing what awaits him. The narrator at this stage coyly
retires to a corner leaving the details of the love making to the
imagination.
Lines 765 to 808
TASK 13
Summarise in the box below the steps taken by the stock courtly
lovers, Damyan and May, in order to complete the arrangements for
their adulterous affair.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Lines 809 to 842
Januarie as befits his position in society:
‘Shoop him to live ful deliciously’
(813)
There is little doubt that he really is able to live with style. He has
constructed a love garden which is a conventional adornment of
courtly love poetry. But there are already hints of the dark side of this
garden in the presence of Priapus, the God of gardens, but also of
sexual love, and of Pluto and Proserpina. These pagan gods serve to
comment on the love affairs of the humans in the Tale, for Pluto had
seized and raped Proserpina in Sicily and she has been forced to live
with him in an uneasy marriage from which she escapes for six months
in every year. Moreover, Pluto is often confused with Plutus, the God
of riches, so he is doubly apposite to comment on Januarie and his
affairs. The pagan world is used to comment upon the Christian.
Januarie keeps the only key to the small gate into this garden where he
takes May in order to do:
‘ ... thinges whiche that were nat doon abedde,
He in the gardyn parfourned hem and spedde.’
(839-40)
Lines 843 to 894
Fortune, which is likened to the scorpion with its sting in its tail,
strikes Januarie blind just as he thinks he is happily married. Always
blind to what is going on around him, he is now literally blind.
Initially, he is overcome with misery especially as he is not able to
watch over his young wife. But his sorrow eases as he accepts his lot,
and:
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
‘He paciently took his adversitee’
(872)
which is a mark in his favour. However, he responds to his blindness
by clinging to his wife the whole time, which causes her to be ever
more desperate for Damyan:
‘ ... she moot han him as hir leste’
(883)
Damyan is equally desperate for May. The only way they can
correspond with each other is by signs as Januarie:
‘ ... hadde an hand upon hire everemo.’
(891)
It is as if he is moulding her like wax. She is allowed no life of her
own.
Lines 895 to 1012
The plot of Damyan and May nears its climax. Summarise that plot in
your notebook.
Throughout these lines Januarie remains foolishly unseeing, as well as
literally blind, but, as the notes below clearly illustrate, Chaucer does
create some genuine sympathy for him in his pathetic condition.
TASK 14
In the next box trace how he does this. Also, briefly comment whether
by creating this sympathy Chaucer succeeds in making Januarie a
much more ‘rounded’, flesh and blood character than would otherwise
have been the case.
continues over
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Lines 1013 to 1107
In these lines Chaucer introduces the Gods Pluto and Proserpina in
much more detail as they join the humans in the garden of love.
TASK 15
In the box below trace briefly the connections between their lives and
those of the humans in the Tale.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Lines 1108 to 1206
We now reach the climax of the Tale.
TASK 16
In the boxes below:
(1)
summarise briefly the events which bring the Tale to a
conclusion
(2)
trace the heavy irony which continues throughout the climax and
which is pointed out in the notes.
Summary
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Merchant’s Tale – Line by line
Use of irony
Lines 1207 to 1228
The Epilogue to the Tale
The host, who also has a shrewish wife, exclaims how women are
always intent, ‘us sely men for to deceyve’. But, knowing that if he
complains too loudly about his wife it will get back to her, he thinks it
is politic to say no more therefore ‘my tale is do’.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Theme of Marriage in The Canterbury Tales
THE THEME OF MARRIAGE IN THE
CANTERBURY TALES
‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’
The debate concerning marriage begins with ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’.
She is the totally dominant woman who will have nothing to do with
the notion that a woman should be the subservient lackey to her
husband. In fact, she has had five husbands and is so ‘earthy’ in her
judgement of what will give satisfaction in marriage that, while
burying one of her husbands, she so fancies the legs of one of the pallbearers that she sets her sights on their owner as her future husband.
She says once she has gained the ‘lond and ..... tresoor’ of her
husbands through marriage:
‘Me neded nat do lenger diligence
To winne hir love, or doon hem reverence.’
(205-206)
‘What sholde I taken hede hem for to plese,
But it were for my profit and myn ese?’
(213-214)
Far from accepting ‘maistrie’ from a husband she is only satisfied
when she has gained it herself. With her true feminine guile she argues
that it is the very fact of man’s superior intellect which requires he
should give way to her whims:
‘Oon of us two moste bowen, doutelees;
And sith a man is more resonable
Than womman is, ye moste been suffrable.’
(440-442)
‘The Clerk’s Tale’
The debate continues with ‘The Clerk’s Tale’ in which a directly
opposite picture of marriage is presented. In it patient Griselda, the
wife, is tested almost to destruction as regards her faithfulness, by a
husband who takes his ‘maistrye’ for granted.
The Tale has resemblances with ‘The Merchant’s Tale’, which
immediately follows it in ‘The Canterbury Tales’ and continues the
marriage debate. Both central characters live in Lombardy. Both
receive advice about marriage. Count Walter from his tenants, who
want him to marry to secure their futures, and Januarie from his
brothers, Placebo and Justinus. Both also have weddings celebrated
with splendid ceremony.
But, from that point, they are totally different. Having tested his wife,
Count Walter finally gives her his love. Whereas in ‘The Merchant’s
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Theme of Marriage in The Canterbury Tales
Tale’, of course, May gradually gains dominance over her husband, a
dominance which the reader can easily see becoming outright
‘maistrye’ if the marriage continues.
‘The Merchant’s Tale’
As you have seen, ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ is presented by a man totally
disillusioned as regards marriage and, now, very cynical as to whether
that institution can be successful. The protagonists within the tale are
driven by lust and jealousy and have no notion of a partnership being
part of a happy marriage. If the view of marriage presented here was
Chaucer’s own rather than his narrator’s then we would have to view
him as nothing other than a cynical misogynist like his narrator, but we
have already established that this view of marriage is not Chaucer’s.
‘The Franklin’s Tale’
The corrective to these three tales comes in the next but one in the
series, ‘The Franklin’s Tale’, which concludes the marriage debate.
There are similarities with ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ and thus the two
tales have linking threads. In each a rich couple has a young man close
at hand who offers to destroy their marriage. Both have a garden as the
place for the intended adultery. The lover Aurelius is subject to all the
complaints proper to a lover in courtly verse, just as Damyan has been
in ‘The Merchant’s Tale’:
‘In langour and in torment furyus
Two yeers and moore lay wrecche Aurelius’.
(1101-2)
But the lady Dorigen, totally unlike May, refuses to make him ‘al hool’
again, she would prefer to die rather than make love to him, and, in the
end, he has the magnanimity to renounce his claim on her.
But, more important is the agreement concerning their marriage that
Arveragus and Dorigen had made. The courtly and feudal notion of
love and marriage decreed that the man must be the lady’s servant
during the courtship period, but would have ‘maistrye’ once the
marriage had taken place. However, Dorigen and Averagus had
decided, with a truly ‘modern’ approach to marriage, theirs would be
based on mutual trust and respect and would be a true partnership:
‘Thus hath she take hir servant and hir lord,
Servant in love, and lord in marriage;
Than was he bothe in lordshipe and servage.’
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(792-94)
The Merchant’s Tale
The Theme of Marriage in The Canterbury Tales
This is far removed from the Merchant’s carnal assessment of married
life’s possibilities, and much closer to what we would expect of
Chaucer’s generous, tolerant and humane view of life.
Conclusions
The group of tales that form the debate on marriage come to a
conclusion with the Franklin’s contribution, and it is fitting that the last
of the sequence should dispel the cynicism of the Merchant. The core
of the debate has centred on the notion of ‘maistrye’, and the
conclusion is that marriage has its greatest chance of success when
neither partner seeks overpowering ‘maistrye’ over the other. A true
partnership, it is suggested, holds out the best hope for a happy union.
Summarise how the four Tales related to the theme of marriage,
contribute, in their separate but interlinked ways, to the debate on
marriage which Chaucer conducts in ‘The Canterbury Tales’.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Conventions of Medieval Courtly Love
THE CONVENTIONS OF MEDIEVAL
COURTLY LOVE
‘The Merchant’s Tale’ follows closely the four conditions of medieval
courtly love in poetry.
(i)
Humility - that of Damyan which wears off during the course of
the tale.
(ii)
Courtesy - this is found in the rich and conventional court
setting of the poem with the closely observed etiquette of the
marriage ceremony including May’s remaining hidden from the
public gaze for four days.
(iii) Adultery - made plain in the first introduction of the lover
Damyan at the wedding-feast of his master.
(iv) The religion of love - in fact, a perversion of religion; a certain
ritual is prescribed in which the lover is in pain in his search for
recognition and miraculously cured once it has been noticed.
Note (It is to be noted, however, that while adultery takes place in the
vast majority of such poems it doesn’t always do so. In ‘The
Franklin’s Tale’, adultery is threatened, but does not actually
take place).
May and Damyan
With an understanding of the ideas and idioms of courtly love in
medieval poetry it becomes understandable why the events and
characters central to its demands take place, and behave, as they do.
(Januarie of course, is largely outside these demands). May is the
adored one who comes around to requiting Damyan’s love. Damyan is
the adorer who has all the pangs of love longing to suffer and all the
fears of discovery, he obeys all the rules of the game. His love letter
goes according to type. He is said to be ‘gentil’, ‘sensable’ and ‘sike’;
she shows ‘pitie and franchise’ and bids him to be ‘al hool’. She has
her lover but he is no longer a ‘servant’, he is exposed as merely
lustful and only capable of giving her a short-lived passionate
experience. The marriage has been treated cynically in ‘The Tale’, the
adulterous affair is treated in an equally disenchanted manner. May
and Damyan emerge as mere stock types and not living individual
characters.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Conventions of Medieval Courtly Love
The love garden
One of the central images of courtly romance is the love garden. It is in
accordance with the conventions of courtly romance that Januarie lays
out such a garden. The love garden, conventionally, is central to a
pleasing view of the love vision, and Januarie builds his garden to find
the adorable qualities of love. But with his garden we are given
mention of Priapus the god of gardens (but also the god of orgiastic
sensuality) as well as Venus, the goddess of love. Also the garden has
as its presiding god Pluto whose rape of Proserpina is one of the
greatest of all fertility and vegetation myths. There is a steady accent
upon violence in this garden: Januarie’s view of sex as violence
inflicted upon women; Pluto and Damyan actually treat their partners
with rough violence. There is complete lack of respect and affection all
around.
The carnality rather than the courtliness of this garden is encapsulated
in the gross image with which the whole story culminates:
‘And sodeynly anon this Damyan
Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng’
(1140-41)
Also within the garden is the image of the Tree; as powerful as any in
the poem. It is the Tree of the fruit of good and evil in which the
serpent took up his abode (in this case Damyan of course); but it is also
an image of Januarie himself. Early in the poem he remarks:
‘Though I be hoor, I fare as dooth a tree
That blosmeth er that fruit ywoxen bee
(249-50)
Myn herte and alle my lymes been as grene
As laurer thurgh the yeer is for to sene’
(253-54)
He is mistaken - he is not an evergreen. He is not living through a
midwinter spring but through an everlasting winter. He does not realise
that every paradise must have a source of evil. Blind, he doesn’t see
Damyan in the tree. He embraces the trunk for May to climb up on
him, so that no one can follow. He is the agent of his own ruin. He
cannot see the Tree for what it is because he cannot see the evil in his
own life. Once his sight returns he still remains blind to the evil he has
promoted. The tree symbolises his complete lack of insight.
Summarise the conventional requirements of medieval courtly love
poetry, and show how ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ distorts and corrupts
those requirements.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Januarie’s Character
JANUARIE’S CHARACTER
Make your own final assessment of Januarie’s character backing up
your assessment with textual references. Try not to look at the notes
below at this stage.
Having completed your own assessment read the notes on Januarie
below and use them to back up, or augment, your own assessment, as
proves necessary.
It would be quite wrong to reduce Januarie to the abstraction ‘Elde’
(old age) since he is one of the poet’s most complex characters. It’s
from him that almost all the ironies of the poem originate (taking
literary irony as, ‘the writer utilising a naive hero, whose invincible
obtuseness leads him to persist in putting an interpretation on affairs
which the reader just as persistently alters or reverses.’)
Januarie is indeed a naive hero always unaware of the fullest
implications of what he says. The long speech on marriage at the
opening of the Tale is totally appropriate for him:
‘And certeinly, as sooth as God is King
To take a wif it is a glorious thing,
And namely whan a man is oold and hoor;
Thanne is a wyf the fruit of his tresor.
Thanne sholde he take a yong wif and a feir.’
(55-59)
Does Januarie recognise himself as ‘oold and hoor’ here? The word
‘fruit’ refers the reader forward, all the way to the catastrophe in the
pear tree, while the word ‘tresor’ brings into the poem the financial
imagery. At every point Januarie sees marriage as a financial contract
and an animal passion but as nothing of greater value.
Januarie in contrast to Damyan and May is indeed flesh and blood. The
reader can sympathise with him as he grows senile, becomes blind, and
is betrayed, but the reader is also repulsed by him because of his
delusion over his sexual prowess when in reality he has to take a whole
range of aphrodisiacs and read a manual ‘De Coitu’ to show him how
to proceed sexually, and when he feels that all he has to do to save his
soul is marry when the marriage is only based on his sexual appetite.
He acts with unceasing ‘fantasye’. He sees himself as a reincarnation
of Paris carrying off his Helen, when he is more properly a fool of an
old husband, a Menelaus. He believes that everything in life has a price
ticket. As soon as he has found his wife he makes ready:
‘ .... every scrit and bond
By which that she was feffed in his lond,’
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(485-6)
The Merchant’s Tale
Januarie’s Character
His courtly pleasure garden is seen as an extension of a cash box in
which the key is the all-important possession. He sees the relation
between the sexes as a kind of war:
‘But in his herte he gan hire to manace
That he that night in armes wolde hire streyne
Harder than evere Paris dide Eleyne.’
(540-2)
He totally fails to ‘read’ May, he marries her for her
‘’ ... fresshe beautee and hir age tendre’
(389)
but also for her
‘... wise governaunce, hir gentillesse,
Hir wommanly beringe, an hire sadnesse’.
(391-2)
Having decided the wife he wants he totally rejects the wisdom of
Justinus, and accepts only the advice of the timeserving sycophant
Placebo. His ‘blindness’ is complete, he will only follow his own
appetites.
But there is another side to him. His house and his estate are well
ordered and run and his servants are treated fairly and respect him. He
has genuine sympathy for Damyan, his Squire, and wishes to comfort
him when he is ill:
‘Of his bountee and his gentillesse
He wolde so comforten in siknesse
His squier, for it was a gentil dede.’
(705-07)
Of course, the fact that this squire is the very man who cuckolds him
can only sharpen the irony which pervades the whole Tale, but also
creates pity for Januarie in the reader.
We can pity him again when his unfaithful wife uses him to crawl on
his back to meet this very squire in the pear tree. It would be difficult
not to empathise with him if not to fully sympathise. He is of the type
of man who never really grows up. Although sixty he still looks for
one thing in a marriage: (although, as has already been noted in the
‘line by line analysis’, there are definite signs, in the ‘love garden’
scene, that he is beginning to move towards a more selfless love;
ironically, it’s too late, May is intent on adultery). He sees likely
marriage partners as through:
‘ .... a mirour, polisshed bright
And sette it in a commune market-place’
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(370-71)
The Merchant’s Tale
Januarie’s Character
He doesn’t look for a real woman but only a reflection, and,
appropriately, this reflection he sees in the place where objects are
bought and sold.
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The Merchant’s Tale
The Poetry of ‘The Merchant’s Tale’
THE POETRY OF ‘THE MERCHANTS
TALE’
The colloquial and highly dramatic character of the poetry of Chaucer
implies that poetry was a highly developed social art. His poetry
evidences the fact that he was no more cut off than Shakespeare from
the more cultivated part of his audience and the vigorous life of the
English people as a whole. The implication is that the English
community portrayed in that poetry was, comparatively, a
homogeneous community - the pilgrimage ranges in its social make-up
from the Knight to the Plowman.
The English oral/aural tradition
For the purposes of imaginative creation in language Chaucer had the
huge advantage of a cultivated English which was also rooted in the
speech - concrete, strong, figurative and proverbial - of the agricultural
English folk. As such his phrases can seem disconcertingly simple.
Similes not metaphors are characteristic of Chaucer and they in their
robust strength are well adapted to the allegorical vision which remains
firmly in place beneath his presentation of the human comedy.
(Allegory = narrative description of a subject under the guise of
another suggestively similar). The apparent simplicity of Chaucer’s
poetry is, in fact, a profoundly civilised simplicity and certainly not to
be mistaken for a primitive unsophisticated naiveté.
Of prime importance to note is the fact that his poetry was written to be
read aloud and not perused silently as has become customary with
modern verse. To be effective when read aloud, the poetry needs to be
clear, brief in its effects, and disciplined, and the language he had at his
disposal was well adapted to meet these requirements.
In your file list the six similes which you find most effective in ‘The
Merchant’s Tale’ and say how each meets the requirements of poetry
intended to be read aloud i.e. ‘clarity, brevity and discipline’?
The printer Caxton writing later of Chaucer, whom he greatly admired,
wrote that the poet ‘comprehended his matter in short, quick and high
sentences, eschewing prolixity’.
A powerful form of oral expression is the proverb which gives in the
fewest possible words the greatest amount of moral wisdom e.g.
‘Ther nis no werkman, whatsoevere he be,
That may bothe werke wel and hastily’
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(620-21)
The Merchant’s Tale
TASK 17
The Poetry of ‘The Merchant’s Tale’
List, in the box below, four examples of proverbs, which Chaucer uses
in ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ (in addition to the example above), which
you found most effective.
Chaucer’s sensitivity to language
Chaucer reveals a true sensitivity to language and its possibilities, and
to its qualities of immediacy and swiftness in lines such as:
and
‘When tendre youth has wedded stooping age’
(526)
‘Lo, where he sit, the lechour, in the tree’
(1045)
and the description of the decrepit old man in bed is a perfect example
of his powerful use of the simile which totally captures the blind
foolishness of Januarie who is never able to understand the reality of
any aspect of his lovemaking:
‘He lulleth hire, he kisseth hire ful oft;
With thikke brustles of his berd unsofte
Lyk to the skin of houndfissh, sharpe as brere’
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(611-13)
The Merchant’s Tale
The Poetry of ‘The Merchant’s Tale’
Illustrate how Chaucer’s rhyming couplet, and all aspects of his poetry,
were so well adapted to meet the requirements of a verse intended to
be read aloud.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Chaucer’s Sources
CHAUCER’S SOURCES
The student of today, surrounded with the modern media’s obsession
with the new, with dizzying changes of fashion, is often surprised to
learn that the writing of the early poets and dramatists - Shakespeare as
well as Chaucer - had no such obsession. Their audiences were much
more interested in the ways that well-known plots and ideas were used
and re-interpreted.
It’s important to know something of Chaucer’s sources as used in ‘The
Merchant’s Tale’ to understand his genius in the use of these. Chaucer
had what amounted to a ‘working library’ of literature on Love to
provide background for his Tale. Latin books such as Theophrastus’
‘The Golden Book’; ‘The Consolation of Philosophy’ by Boethius; and
‘The Love of God’ and ‘Consolation’ by Albertino, provided him with
philosophical observations and epigrams concerning love and
marriage. And three important sources lead back to the incidents in the
narrative itself. But it is important to note that no single source for the
whole Tale has ever been found.
(a) Deschamps
The situation for Januarie making up his mind to marry and
consulting his friends for the purpose can be traced back to the
French poet Deschamps and his poem ‘Mirror of Marriage’. This
involves, ‘A man of suitable age, feeling the prompting of certain
inner impulses towards marriage. These impulses induce a
foolish, deceitful .... line of reasoning’. But the important
( differences are that Deschamps’ hero is of suitable age for
bmarriage and that, in the end, he is swayed by reason and not
sexual passion.
)
(b) Boccaccio
The scene in which Januarie is bedded with May has for its source a
long speech in the story ‘Ameto’ by Boccaccio, one of Chaucer’s
main Italian influences, but whereas Boccaccio’s Agapes, the young
wife, gives a full account of her suffering, May is completely silent
( i.e. Chaucer shows delicacy and restraint in handling this grotesque
incident.
c
)
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The Merchant’s Tale
Chaucer’s Sources
(c) Tree stories
The third episode, that involving the adulterous Damyan in the pear
tree, can be traced to a variety of sources both oral and written. A
version known as ‘The Enchanted Pear Tree’, and the legend that
inspired the ‘Cherry Tree Carol’, in which Joseph has to satisfy the
longing of Mary for cherries, both provide parallels.
But none of these covers much of the ground of this Tale, the variety
and pace of the story, together with much of the detail, are truly and
originally, Chaucerian.
One other Latin work provides more than philosophical observations,
Claudian’s poem ‘The Rape of Proserpina’.
‘In Claudian ye may the stories rede’
(1020)
This constitutes something of an extended metaphor for the whole
action, for in the poem Pluto carries off and rapes Proserpina. She,
hating her situation, always wished to escape from it, and later
succeeds in being separated from Pluto for six months in every year.
They are a couple as unhappy and unsatisfactory as Januarie and May.
Chaucer draws together the two worlds of paganism and Christianity
by giving Januarie and May counterparts from a completely separate
order of creature. Chaucer puts the pagan gods in their places,and also
defines the living hell that can be lived by human beings who act
blindly and selfishly.
Conclusion
For Chaucer sources were not merely literary sources. His fundamental
source was the English language itself. The vitality and vividness of
Chaucer’s human comedy springs from that common source, that
‘well’ of English which, later, was Shakespeare’s also. The characters
of that human comedy are already recognisably English men and
women, members of a community with the characters of later literature
- there are in later English no characters more vivid than these, an
integral and vivid member of this group being Januarie. In fact, ‘The
Merchant’s Tale’ as a whole, with its blending of Christian and pagan;
its controlled irony; its powerful imagery; and its subtle inversion of
courtly love traditions in its commentary on marriage is one of
Chaucer’s masterpieces.
In the end no literary historian can adequately account for Chaucer’s
art. There is nothing we know of literature and society of the time that
can adequately do so. There is no clearer case of original genius.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Chaucer’s Sources
Summarise the sources which Chaucer uses in his writing of ‘The
Merchant’s Tale’ and show how his genius is displayed in the use of
these.
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The Merchant’s Tale
Examination and Revision Questions
EXAMINATION AND REVISION
QUESTIONS
(1)
‘The view of marriage as presented in ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ is
so cynical that it adds nothing to the eternal debate on the value
of that institution’. Discuss.
(2)
‘Januarie is the creation of a writer of supreme genius’. Discuss.
(3)
‘The Merchant’s Tale’ is indeed what we are led to expect from
our knowledge of the Merchant as a character. Discuss.
(4)
By close reference to the poetry in ‘The Merchant’s Tale’
discuss whether it displays ‘a profoundly civilised simplicity’.
(5)
‘Similes, not metaphors are characteristic of Chaucer’. Discuss
whether you think this is true and why this is so. Refer closely to
the actual imagery of ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ in your answer.
(6)
‘The ‘Garden of Love’, and the events that take place in it,
provides a fitting commentary on the bogus nature of Januarie
and May’s marriage’. Discuss.
(7)
‘May and Damyan are mere stock characters so lacking in flesh
that they add nothing to the power of the Tale’. Discuss.
(8)
‘Pagan and Christian are combined in a very subtle fashion in the
Tale and this combination adds much to its final strength’.
Discuss.
(9)
‘All is irony’. Discuss in relation to ‘The Merchant’s Tale’.
(10) ‘The work of a supreme genius’. Summarise the arguments
which could be put forward to support this view of ‘The
Merchant’s Tale’ (or present your arguments for disagreeing).
(11) Describe how Chaucer uses ‘authorities’ in ‘The Merchant’s
Tale’, and account for how his use of them reveals his true
genius.
(12) ‘Maistrye’ and ‘gentillesse’ are key concepts in ‘The Canterbury
Tales’. Describe how they are used in ‘The Merchant’s Tale’.
(13) ‘The two brothers, Placebo and Justinius, in their very different
advice on the nature of marriage and whether Januarie should
marry, serve admirably to point up the totally unseeing
foolishness of Januarie.’ Discuss.
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