Chaucer critics

New historicism (4)

• Rise of the middle class and fear of being cheated

• Implications of church canon law and the masculine idea of ownership

• Power dynamics due to the strict patriarchal order

• Characters are simply products of their time, shaped by the gender norms of the time and archetypes of the fabliaux

Marxist (3)

• Januarie “shops” for a wife, as if she is property. She is essentially treated as a commodity.

• Jan and May’s marriage is fully transactional, based on economics and patriarchal domination

• “Revolt of the proletariat”, with May having an affair with Damian seen as the lower class breaking free from oppression.

New Criticism (4)

Focus on the text

• January’s physical blindness is a metaphor for his mental blindness earlier in the text. When his physical sight is restored, he fails to see reality, creating a paradox.

• The Pear Tree is a key focal point, representing both masculinity and femininity.

• The cliket is a tool to invert the power dynamic, allowing May to hold the ‘phallic’ power of access, emasculating January

• The poem defies easy interpretation; the narrative voice is too fragmented and the irony too dense to be reduced to simply misogyny or feminist victory.

Psychoanalytic (4)

• January is a ‘surrogate’ of the Merchant himself, who uses his tale to project his bitter, cynical views of marriage.

• January’s desire makes him metaphorically blind long before he is physically blinded. He cannot see the reality of his own sexual inadequacy or May’s infidelity, because his ego refuses to acknowledge it.

• January choosing to believe May’s lie demonstrates a psychological defense mechanism to preserve his fragile ego.

• The garden is a classic symbol of the womb, or the enclosed, private subconscious space

Derek Pearsall

• Male authority is presented less so as indecisive and all accepting but more fragile and self-deluding

• Chaucer’s misogynstic characters are so exaggerated they are clearly mocking and inviting criticism through the use of extremes.

Elaine Hansen

• May is not an independent character. She is created entirely through male fantasy (January’s desire, The Merchant’s misogyny")

• Throughout the story May starts to pose as a threat - that women can foster their own private desires.

Jill Mann

• Chaucer actively dismantles traditional gender boundaries. She identifies ‘feminised’ heroes in Chaucer’s work; male characters that adopt passive, patient roles. A reformulation of ideal masculinity.

John Hathaway

“All May has to do is adapt her identity accordingly to win freedom for herself and allow her husband to scuttle back into the fool’s paradise he has fashioned for himself.”

Kitteredge

• Chaucer constructed his tales to create a “marriage debate”P

Peter Brown

Their marriage is “unnatural” and “rooted in opposite kinds of seasonal image”, which will make May’s triumph inevitable.

Tina Davidson

It is not a meek and subservient woman who is rewarded, but rather the feisty and opportunistic May