Chaucer, Geoffrey - Jessica Cooke (essay date 1997)

Jessica Cooke (essay date 1997)

SOURCE: “Januarie and May in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale, in English Studies, Vol. 78, No. 5, September 1997, pp. 407-16.

[In the following essay, Cooke argues that in “The Merchant's Tale” the naming of the characters Januarie and May is more obscure than many critics have previously allowed. Cooke demonstrates the error many have made in calculating the ages of the characters, and discusses the significance of this miscalculation.]

In his article of 1973, Norman E. Eliason expressed a commonly held view concerning the naming of Januarie and May in Chaucer's “Merchant's Tale”:

… the metaphor involved in applying these month names to the old husband and his young wife is anything but obscure nor one which demanded much ingenuity of Chaucer.1

Though written over twenty years ago, Eliason's view is generally held to be as true today as...

[The entire page is 5898 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass