Learner Resource 3:
Courtly Love
Definition of Courtly Love: The Merchant’s
Prologue and Tale follows, to some degree,
the conventions of courtly love. Courtly love
was both an ideology and a Medieval literary
form and, as its name suggests, described the
love that might be found in the court of a rich
man or a nobleman: in other words, among
the highest ranks in society. Young men and
women of high rank had no say about whom they married. The marriage was arranged by their
parents, often to secure an alliance between two families, and the parents would arrange all the
details, including the dowry and financial settlement. As Maurice Hussey writes, all the newly
married couple had to do was to live together.
Such a way of arranging a marriage was not always likely to promote love between a husband and
wife, and each might look elsewhere for an (adulterous) love. Damyan corresponds in some ways
to the courtly love suitor, in love with another man’s wife. He is sick with love for the woman, pines
away and can only be cured if she returns his love. Once May takes notice of Damyan in The
Merchant’s Tale, he is up, about and chirpy.
May, similarly, follows the template of the heroine of courtly love. She scarcely notices Damyan at
first, but starts to feel pity for and interest in him once he has received his letter:
Who studieth now but faire fresshe May?
(line 743)
(Who studies now but fair, fresh May?)
She presumably “studieth” - goes over and over the implications of – Damyan’s love letter, and is
completely preoccupied by it. The consummation of their love is to take place in January’s garden,
but is far from romantic. Damyan is completely unrestrained and seems interested only in
satisfying his lust rather than her desire: not an auspicious beginning for a romance.
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And sodeynly anon this Damyan
Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng.
(Lines 1140-1)
(And suddenly at once this Damyan
Pulled up her smock, and in he thrust.)
Chaucer’s attitude to Damyan and May is coloured by the Christian teaching of the Ten
Commandments, which absolutely forbids adultery. Damyan and May might see themselves as
great romantics: a Christian interpretation suggests they are self-indulgent, undutiful and have an
inflated sense of their own importance. Chaucer distances our sympathies from them by:
presenting January, especially after his blindness, as a more sympathetic character, thus
heightening our condemnation of May; introducing Pluto and Proserpina, who turn the love
triangle into a skirmish in the comic tradition of the battle of the sexes, rather than the grand and
noble passion that May and Damyan might believe it to be.
Student Task: Working in pairs, students focus on the following question:
To what extent does Chaucer present May, Damyan and January as sympathetic
characters?
In your pairs, discuss and make notes on this question. Relay your answer back to the rest of the
class. You may like to provide copies of your notes for them.
You should consider the following points:
•
Damyan’s love for May as a parody of courtly love.
•
May and Damyan as breaking the Christian commandment, Thou shalt not commit
adultery.
•
May supported by Proserpina, who gives her a clever excuse for grappling with Damyan
up a tree. See lines 1053-4:
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Now by my moodres sires soule I swere
That I shal yeven hire suffisant answere
(l.1053-4)
(Now, by my mother’s father’s soul I swear
That I shall give her a sufficient answer
[i.e. to January’s accusation of adultery])
Would May be applauded by women in Chaucer’s audience? He certainly liked strong women, as
we see in his affection for Alison, the Wife of Bath.
• Where do the reader’s sympathies lie at the ending of the Tale?
Pluto has restored January’s sight that he might see “this grete wrong” (“this great wrong”,
l.1142): January howls with anguish, May tells him a pack of lies as an excuse. Does January
believe her, or does he opt not to mention it again for the sake of a peaceful life? See lines 12001204:
This Januarie, who is glad but he?
He kisseth hire, and clippeth hire ful ofte,
And on hire wombe he stroketh hire ful softe,
And to his palays hoom he hath hire lad.
Now, goode men, I pray yow to be glad!
(Who is glad but January?
He kisses her, and embraces her many times,
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And on her womb he strokes her very softly,
And to his palace he led her home.
Now, good men, I pray you to be glad!)
Line 1202 suggests May is pregnant, but with Damyan’s child, not January’s. Is there pathos
here? January is keeping quiet about his wife’s adultery and will accept the child as his own,
knowing that he is unable to father one himself. Is the final line ironic, and said sarcastically by
the Merchant? What is there for men to be “glad” about? Look also at The Merchant’s Epilogue
(line 1207-1228): the Host has clearly learnt nothing about May’s oppressed position as
January’s chattel.
•
Students should also consider the earthiness and lack of romance of the following details
from The Merchant’s Tale:
1. May reads Damyan’s note in the loo (“the privee” – literally, the private [place]) and then tears
it up:
She feyend hire as that she moste gon
Ther as ye woot that every wight moot neede;
And whan she of this bille hath taken heede,
She rente it al to cloutes atte laste,
And in the privee softely it caste.
(Lines 739-742)
(She pretended that she had to go
Where you know everyone has to go sometimes;
And when she had taken heed of this letter,
She tore it all to pieces in the end,
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And gently dropped it into the privy.)
2. After all the romantic fuss, consider the desperate lust of the consummation of Damyan’s great
romantic and “courtly” love:
And sodeynly anon this Damyan
Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng.
(Lines 1140-1)
(And suddenly at once this Damyan
Pulled up her smock, and in he thrust.)
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