This document provides you with the key critical interpretations of 'The Merchant's Tale' that you will need in your exam. The critics included look at feminist perspectives, those exploring differing class views, the court, and general critics about Chaucer's Tale. They have been carefully selecte...
The Merchant's Tale AO3 (Context) and AO5 (Critics)
The Merchant's Tale - Quotes
The Merchant's Tale - Historical Context
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OCR
English Literature
Drama and poetry pre-1900 (H472)
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Key Merchants Tale Critics
General
‘The Merchant's Prologue and Tale was devised purely for entertainment’ – John Dryden,
Seventeenth Century.
The tale has ‘moralised universal meaning’ – King
‘Mismatch between what we expect…and what we get’ (linking this to expectations of the
fabliau) – Nuttall
‘January is a kind of deformed moral consciousness’ – Pearsall
January is a great achievement of ‘moral characterisation’ – Benson
Women
‘May is made of masculine fantasy’ – Tolliver (she)
The story intends ‘to show the deceitfulness of women’ – Stevens
‘The Merchant's complaints are of a conventional piece of medieval antifeminism’- C David
Benson, Twentieth Century
‘Damian is no more than a poodle to this lady dog-trainer’ - Derek Pearsall, Twentieth
Century
Davidson comments on the fact May takes control of her own sexuality
Chaucer is ‘preoccupied with the sorrows of the female’ – Ackryod
‘Women is at the centre rather than the periphery where she becomes the norm against
which all human behaviour is to be measured’ – Mann
‘Mutual love between spouses is notable absent’ – Kelly
‘Transcends the traditional medieval criticism of women for their seductive powers’ –
Wentersdorf
Freud: Madonna complex – argued men were incapable of maintaining a sexual relationship
with a woman they respect (couldn’t view women as nurturing (motherly) + sexuality in
tandem)
Religion
‘January’s bending of religious authority to his own selfish purposes leaves religion
untouched’ – Thorne
‘Religion itself is bemocked’ – Tatlok
In Chaucerian comedy there are ‘no values, secular or religious, more important than
survival or satisfaction of the appetite’ - Saywood
Court
The tale is a ‘cynical condemnation of courtly convention’ – Shores
‘Humorously exposes the raw bestiality lying underneath courtly convention’ – Laskaya
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