Critical quotations

relationships & money

a cautionary tale of the dangers quantifying relationships in monetary terms

• Sam brunner

steven

'a story intending to show the deceitfulness of women'

turner

Pluto and Proserpina's relationship has parallels with that of Januarie and May'

davidson

She will take control of her own sexuality'

monetary wealth

‘With a rise of the merchants came a mercantile attitude which placed special emphasis on monetary wealth’

chaucers career

From 14 to the end of his life he acted as a royal servant for three kings’

chaucers marriage

‘It is hard to escape the conclusion that he led a somewhat unconventional marital life’

married to phillipa roet While they were married until her death around 1387, they often lived apart due to Chaucer’s diplomatic duties and travels

women in chaucer

‘The women of his poetry also tend to be deserted and betrayed’

inspiration for Januarie

Is January inspired by Sir Gilles de Roet (Chaucer’s Father in Law?)

chaucers granddaughter

In 1414 at the age of about ten, Chaucer’s Granddaughter Alice was married to Sir John Phelip. (He was in his mid 30’s.)

Ackroyd on social order

the poem takes as its larger theme the nature of a threatened and disrupted social order

“notion of authority seems to be paradied”

mercantile

January has a strictly mercatile interest in May - tolliver

Davidson

She will take control of her own sexuality

Meally

Medieval peeping Tom who spies on local young girls (senex amans)

O’Neill

The tale can be read as a critique of the gender imbalance of the medieval marriage market in which women were traded as commodities

fabilaux

Stereotypical denouement of fabliaux - davidson

Hallisy

risks all for the interlude in the tree

King

an attempt to elevate an obscene fabilau by giving it a moralised universal meaning

Martin

the male exploitation of economic power for erotic perchase