Learner Resource 2:
The Garden of Love
Student task
1. Students need to read Chaucer’s description of
January’s garden (lines 816-842, 920-1207) and
consider the actions which take place in it: January and
May’s love-making (such as it is); the visit of Pluto and
Proserpina; Damian’s adultery; May’s reply to January,
given her by Proserpina.
Ask students to paraphrase these sections into
modern English, and write them out for the rest of
the class (the teacher might want to photocopy and
distribute these).
2. Ask students to research the significance of the Garden of Love in Medieval literature. See ps.
8-16 of The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale, ed. Maurice Hussey, Cambridge University Press,
1966.
All Medieval gardens – in The Romance of the Rose (mentioned by Chaucer on line 820) and The
Canterbury Tales – represent the Garden of Eden from the Book of Genesis, chapters two and
three (reprinted below from the King James Bible).
Student Task: How do the actions and characters of the Garden scene in The Merchant’s
Tale correspond to the actions and characters in the Book of Genesis?
Chaucer invites us to make these comparisons, and ironically indicates how ludicrous they are.
In what ways are the characters of May, January and Damian different from their Biblical
equivalents? And how does Chaucer use these differences to create humour?
3. Students need to read chapter 13 of The Magician’s Nephew, by C.S.Lewis (1955), “An
Unexpected Meeting”. The Magician’s Nephew is the penultimate book of Narnia in order of
composition, although Lewis once suggested it should be read first as a “prequel” to The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe (1950).
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In this chapter, the hero Digory has been given a task by Aslan (representing Jesus in Lewis’s
Narnia) of bringing an apple back from the walled garden in the newly created world. Digory’s
mother in England is near death and the apple would cure her. Jadis, the witch (who becomes the
White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) tempts Digory to steal the apple for himself.
If this sounds familiar – the walled garden, the apple, the agent of temptation - it is because
C.S.Lewis was a professor of Medieval Literature at Oxford, and then Cambridge, University and
used Medieval imagery and symbolism in the Narnia stories.
Questions for Students 1: How does Lewis use the image and symbol of the walled Garden
thematically in The Magician’s Nephew? How does this garden correspond to January’s garden in
The Merchant’s Tale and to the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis?
Questions for Students 2: Student should consider the Freudian reading of January’s walled
garden. Freudian critics of the Bible story and of January’s garden would by no means see it in
spiritual terms as concerning the interplay of temptation and tested virtue. How would a Freudian
critic interpret a. the Garden of Eden and b. January’s garden?
Look, for example, at the round wall of the garden; the emphasis on January’s “cliket” (line 834 –
“key” in modern English but notice the original’s onomatopoeia); the “wiket” (line 833):
This noble knight, this Januarie the olde,
Swich deyntee hath in it to walke and pleye,
That he wol no wight suffren bere the keye
Save he himself; for of the smale wiket
He baar alwey of silver a cliket,
With which, whan that him leste, he it unshette.
(lines 830-835)
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(This noble knight, this January the Old,
Had such delight to walk and play in it [the garden],
That he would not allow any person to bear the key
Except for himself; for of the small gate
He always carried a key made of silver
With which, when he pleased, he unlocked it.)
See also May’s longing for the “peres” (l. 1119) pears that she sees dangling from the tree where
Damyan sits:
“Now sire,” quod she, “for aught that may betide,
I moste han of the peres that I see,
Or I moot die, so soore longeth me
To eten of the smale peres grene.”
(lines 1118-1121)
(“Now sir,” said she, “whatever may happen next [or, as a consequence],
I must have some of those pears that I see,
Or I must die, so sorely I long
To eat of those small green pears.”)
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Students should consider: How helpful is a Freudian interpretation to our understanding of the
text? As Chaucer could not possibly have been influenced by Freud, is the interpretation at all
relevant? Might Chaucer have intended such double meanings in his symbolism anyway?
Extract from The King James Bible: Genesis,
Chapter Two
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man
whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the
sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of
knowledge of good and evil.
15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him
an help meet for him.
19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl
of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and
whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of
the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
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21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took
one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and
brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be
called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Chapter 3
1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had
made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of
the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall
not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and
ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they
sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
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8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day:
and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the
trees of the garden.
9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked;
and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof
I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the
tree, and I did eat.
13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the
woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed
above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in
sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and
hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed
is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the
field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of
it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
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20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed
them.
22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and
evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live
forever:
23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground
from whence he was taken.
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