critcs

• Kitteridge suggests that ~ "the merchant's prologue reveals a frenzy of contempt and hatred for women"
• “Marriage was at best a necessary evil…virginity was far superior to the married state.” Pamela King 
• “Wide-spread male assertion in the anit-feminist tradition that women are inferior beings who are not worth having anyway.” Pamela King 
• On Chaucer…”When he reserves the dunce’s cap for himself it is all the more fitting because it does not fit.” G.K Chesterton 
• On Fabliau…”In substance it is nothing but a tale of bawdry, one of the most familiar of its class.” John Burrow 
• “It is true to say that January’s high fantasises are made to look ridiculous within the poem.” John Burrow 
• “The Merchant’s Tale is rather naughtier in the manner of the French” G.K.Chesterton 
• “Unlike other fabliau tales this one faces moral issues.  This involves radical modification of the fabliau method.” John Burrow 
• “A ruthless almost hysterical story” John Burrow 
• “Chaucer works on playing on women’s proverbial deceit and ability to talk their way out of anything.” Gillian Rudd 
• “The Merchant’s tale however draws no distinction between good and bad marriage and belittles the sacrament itself.” Pamela King 
• “May as a young wife is the aging January’s most valuable investment.” Gillian Rudd 
• “A story which exemplifies in this hyperbolic way the virtue of fortitude under affliction” G.L,Kittredge 
• “The later events in Januarie’s garden are primarily a burlesque” Pamela King 
• “The story-tellers do not merely exist to tell the stories; the stories exist to tell us something about the story-tellers.” G.K.Chesterton 
• “The tales are always appropriate; and the inappropriate is the most appropriate of all”. G.K .Chesterton 
• “In Chaucer’s day real life marriage was rarely undertaken for love.” Pamela King 
• “Januarie goes blind and the extravagance of his jealousy is noted in the best fabliau manner.” J.J. Anderson 
• “He is presented as pathetic, absurd and repulsive.” J.J.Anderson 
• “In those times it wasn’t uncommon to ‘buy a bride.’” P.King 
• “The equation made in The Merchant’s Tale’ is not shocking in context.”  P.King 
•  'Mercantile logic in 'The Merchant's Tale' leads to a breakdown of human relations, as characters bargain, trade and deal their way through marriage'  Sam Bruner 
• 'The Merchant's misogyny is a product of his marital disillusionment' Stephanie A. Tolliver 
• 'January believes he is inhabiting a romance which is finally bitterly exposed as a fabliaux' Priscilla Martin 
• 'May transcends the 'economic and religious nexus in which she has been sold and violated' David Aers 
• 'January's folly is that he sees what he wants to see, rather than what is actually before him' Beidler 
• “In January's eyes, women exist purely for men's satisfaction. Unfortunately for him, however, May also finds 'tendre veel' tastier and sees his young squire, Damian, as a more tempting prospect than her ageing husband.” Katy Lee 
• “In the Miller's and Merchant's 'Tales' Chaucer presents us with young women who trick men by turning their tastiness to their own advantage.” Katy Lee