Pears and Pregnancy in Chaucer's 'Merchant's Tale'
- Author / Editor
- Everest, Carol A.
Pears and Pregnancy in Chaucer's 'Merchant's Tale'
- Published
- Melitta Weiss Adamson, ed. Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays (New York and London: Garland, 1995), pp. 161-75.
- Description
- May's request for pears in MerT indicates that she is pregnant, since medieval texts align the condition with a desire for unripe fruit. Moreover, medieval medical treatises recommend pears for the treatment of stomach disroders, "especially the nausea due to pregnancy."
- Contributor
- Weiss Adamson, Melitta,ed.
- Alternative Title
- Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Merchant and His Tale.