'Paradys or Helle': Pleasure and Procreation in Chaucer's 'Merchant's Tale'

Author / Editor
Everest, Carol (A.)

Title
'Paradys or Helle': Pleasure and Procreation in Chaucer's 'Merchant's Tale'

Published
Muriel Whitaker, ed. Sovereign Lady: Essays on Women in Middle English Literature (New York and London: Garland, 1995), pp. 63-84.

Description
The traditional Galenic idea that conception requires female orgasm indicates that May is not pregnant by January. However, implicit and symbolic references to seed and fruit suggest that Damian has impregnated her.

Alternative Title
Sovereign Lady: Essays on Women in Middle English Literature.

Chaucer Subjects
Merchant and His Tale.