January is interested in getting married and wants to find himself a wife. This is due to the fact that he feels he is getting old and he believes that through marriage he will redeem himself from his licentious past. This also does not fit in with courtly love idea, which is that people will marry because they are in love. January does finally pick a woman and then begins to list the qualities he has found in her:
‘Hir middle small, hire armes longe and sklendre,
Hir wise governaunce, hir gentillesse,’
Although January is describing her appearance, he also brings up her personality and mind. This enables the reader to think that this could be courtly love because he does not think of her looks only. By talking about her mind he appears to be seeing her as his equal. This, however, is shown to not be true by the fact that the audience is not told of May’s thoughts and feelings creating the image that they are less important that January’s. This dispels the image of courtly love and brings forth the fact that January does not see her as equal to him. This creates irony because Chaucer is satirising their relationship by, in effect, comparing their relationship to courtly love and showing that it does not hold up to it.
Although January and May are shown to not have courtly love, we are shown another character that has the possibility of being a courtly lover.
‘Almoost he swelte and swowned ther he stood,’
The use of hyperbole highlights the idea of the character, Damien, being appropriate as a courtly lover for May. It is dramatic and are typical symptoms that lead to a form of typical courtly love and then brings the readers attention to the fact that we could be seeing the formation of a new, more apt, ‘courtly love’ relationship.
The audience is then expecting Damien’s next reaction to be one that follows up the feelings he has shown for May at the wedding feast.
‘So brenneth that he dieth for desir,…
But prively a penner gan he borwe,’
Chaucer uses bathos here to add humour to the tale as it is a great anti-climax to the build up of courtly love. It creates irony as we see Damien saying that he would ‘deith for desire’, this makes the audience believe he will do something in the style of courtly love to show this. He does, however, only borrow a pen to show his love. What this does is parodies the relationship of May and Damien and creates irony as it contrasts greatly from the expected behaviour which is required to make him a courtly lover.
According to tradition a courtly lover is so madly in love that they have no fear as they are under the powers of love. This is what is expected of the ‘ courtly lover’ and Damien is proved to no be under this power of love when giving the letter to May:
‘ Mercy, and that ye nat discovere me,
For I am deed if that this thing be kid.’
By saying this to May he is pleading with her because of a fear of being caught. This is very out of character for a courtly lover and proves further more to the audience that Damien is not a courtly lover. His pleading creates irony as it contrasts greatly from earlier behaviour when he first saw May. It proves to the reader that this is not real courtly love as Damien cannot be a hero.
May reinforces this view of her and Damien’s relationship by the way that she reacts to the letter. Like Damien, we see symptoms of courtly love when she takes the letter from him and also, like we see with Damien, these ideas are dispelled with later actions.
‘She rente it al to cloutes ate laste,
And in the privee softely it caste.’
This ruins the romantic imagery of reading a secret love letter from Damien. By throwing the letter into the toilet, she has created humour and made the situation into a joke on the relationship between them. Originally it was possible to see a possible relationship between her and Damien as she was in an unhappy relationship (the basis for one example of courtly love) when she met him. The irony in the situation is created by all the incorrect actions that she carries out. They make the situation humorous as twice Chaucer has presented ideas of courtly love and then altered them so that his characters do not carry them out properly.
Chaucer uses courtly love constantly throughout the tale as a theme that leads all the characters to act incorrectly and result in disasters or deception. Although the main characters appear to be courtly lovers, they prove to the reader that they are not by their actions. In the first instance we see a possibility between the knight January and May. This, however, was ruined by the behaviour that January had towards women as he does not see May as his equal in the relationship. We also see the inability of Damien to behave as the courtly lover as his actions lack the bravery required by a courtly lover. These constant incorrect courtly loves in the take creates irony as we see that love has affected their lives negatively in many circumstances. Characters appear foolish and also lose things such as inheritence or self respect by being involved in ‘courtly love’. It also was not carried out properly by the characters, creating humour as we see them as being unable to be this typical type of lover. Courtly love is satirised in the tale by Chaucer to aide the parodying of his characters and enables the reader to see the humour in the tale on a serious subject.