The Merchant's Tale (1390s)

‘His bootes clasped faire and fetisly’ - 275

Visual imagery - characterised as materialistic and arrogant

Adverb - fetisly

‘Worthy man’ - 281

Ironic epithet

‘I have a wyf, the worste rhat may be; / For thogh the feend to hire ycoupled were, / She wolde him overmacche, I dar wel swere.’ - 6-8

Hyperbole

Derogatory characterisation of his wife

7 and 8 - rhyming couplet

‘She is a shrewe et al.’

Rodential imagery, derogatory

‘Thar I seye sooth, by Seint Thomas of Inde,’ - 18

Intertextual reference to the Bible - Doubting Thomas - didn’t believe the resurrection

Ironic, presents Merchant as dubious and dishonest

‘‘Noon oother lyfe’ seyde he, ‘is worth a bene; / For wedlok is so esy and clene’’

Rhyming couplet

Ironic proleptic reference to the garden / cuckolding

Mercantile imagery - Merchant’s narrative voice permeating the tale

‘Thanne is a wyfe the fruit of his tresor.’

Metaphor - obsessed with status symbols - Mercantile imagery, Merchant’s narrative voice

Fruit - ironic proleptic reference to pear tree

‘‘Deffie Theofraste, and herke me.’

Intertextual reference to Theophrastus - why men should not marry, overlooked the satire, January lacks insight

Characterises him as arrogant and egotistical