The Merchant's Tale - Critics Combined Complete
Stephanie A Tolliver
'May is made of masculine fantasy'
Stephanie A Tolliver
January is blinded 'by the deception of his wife'
Stephanie A Tolliver
'The Merchant's misogyny is a product of his marital disillusionment'
Priscilla Martin
'The male exploitation of economic power for erotic purchase'
Priscilla Martin
'January believes he is inhabiting a romance which is finally bitterly exposed as a
fabliaux'
Ann Haskell
'Life for women of the gentry was synonymous with marriage'
David Aers
'May transcends the 'economic and religious nexus in which she has been sold and
violated'
Derek Pearsall
'The amoral tale reduces 'all human behaviour to lust and greed'
Elaine Hanson
'Early critics reviews of May as 'a completely unfeeling wife' is because many are
unable to accept her vanquishing over the senex amans'
Beidler
'January's folly is that he sees what he wants to see, rather than what is actually before
him'
Dr Barrie Saywood
'In Chaucerian comedy, 'there are no values, secular or religious, more important than
survival or satisfaction of the appetite'
Wentersdorf
'Transcends the traditional medieval criticism of women for their seductive powers and
inconstancy in love...demonstration of the reprehensible folly and lechery of men'
T W Craik
Tone of tale is 'mordant venom'
Tatlok
Tone of tale is 'unrivalled acidity'
Burnley
'Cynical narrator contemplating a scene of moral desolation'
Kittredge
'The fabliau 'becomes a complete disquisition of marriage'
Richard Delamore
'Lies in the possibility of unacknowledged pleasure'
Beidler
January is 'emasculated by a wife who plays a knightly role he should be playing'
Elaine Hanson
May 'is devised out of January's thoughts, just as Eve is out of Adam's'
Stephanie A Tolliver
'May is made of masculine fantasy'
Stephanie A Tolliver
January is blinded 'by the deception of his wife'
Stephanie A Tolliver
'The Merchant's misogyny is a product of his marital disillusionment'
Priscilla Martin
'The male exploitation of economic power for erotic purchase'
Priscilla Martin
'January believes he is inhabiting a romance which is finally bitterly exposed as a
fabliaux'
Ann Haskell
'Life for women of the gentry was synonymous with marriage'
David Aers
'May transcends the 'economic and religious nexus in which she has been sold and
violated'
Derek Pearsall
'The amoral tale reduces 'all human behaviour to lust and greed'
Elaine Hanson
'Early critics reviews of May as 'a completely unfeeling wife' is because many are
unable to accept her vanquishing over the senex amans'
Beidler
'January's folly is that he sees what he wants to see, rather than what is actually before
him'
Dr Barrie Saywood
'In Chaucerian comedy, 'there are no values, secular or religious, more important than
survival or satisfaction of the appetite'
Wentersdorf
'Transcends the traditional medieval criticism of women for their seductive powers and
inconstancy in love...demonstration of the reprehensible folly and lechery of men'
T W Craik
Tone of tale is 'mordant venom'
Tatlok
Tone of tale is 'unrivalled acidity'
Burnley
'Cynical narrator contemplating a scene of moral desolation'
Kittredge
'The fabliau 'becomes a complete disquisition of marriage'
Richard Delamore
'Lies in the possibility of unacknowledged pleasure'
Beidler
January is 'emasculated by a wife who plays a knightly role he should be playing'
Elaine Hanson
May 'is devised out of January's thoughts, just as Eve is out of Adam's'
