The Reeve’s Tale
* Much of the imagery is low-level, everyday. But different from the Miller’s Tale’s ripe, life-affirming images.
* Black comedy! Theft, rape, violence.
* FABLIAU!
* CRADLE-TRICK!
* Blood obsession – offencisve to nobility and clergy and key to how Osewold can be hurt.
* Chaucer’s source in French (Le Meunier) – holds to the key plot but adds and adapts, e.g. flour cake and other events for added characterisation of Malyne and others. Increased characterisation, but still not as much as in Miller’s Tale.
* Shifts in register – formal to slang? Respectful tone?
* Sarcasm?
* Misuse of words (e.g. name)
* Opposites of meaning, e.g. dich (?)
* Told by aristocrats mocking lower classes aspirations or in self-mockery?
* Sly humour – corn grinding = sex.
* Millers’ and Reeves’ were professional opposites; one devoted to dishonesty and the other devoted to maximising his Lord’s income.
First section:
* Rhyming couplets:
o More playful tone
o More idiomatic speech
o Prevents any lofty development, or dignity!
* Osewold rhymes with cuckold.
* The prologue outlines the miller’s hostility in legal terms as if the miller has slandered Osewold for telling a tale in which a carpenter is slandered.
* Low style; language and imagery restricted.
* LANGUAGE OF DEATH?
o Life and death are interlaced. (e.g. 36-37).
* Line 27: As we may not be sexually active, we may speak in bawdy terms.
* Yet emphasis placed throughout text on revenge.
* ‘cherles termes’ – lofty language, terms of courtship.
* Introducing characters – character descriptions are significant later.
* Use of realism.
