Examine the Literary and Linguistic Techniques used by Chaucer to bring to life his characters and their Dilemmas.

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Examine the Literary and Linguistic Techniques used by Chaucer to bring to life his characters and their Dilemmas.

        I am going to examine the literary and linguistic techniques used by Chaucer to bring to life his characters and their dilemmas. To begin with January builds a beautiful garden with a high stonewall for May, ‘He made a gardyn, walled al with stoon’. The garden symbolises secrecy, the growth of women and fertility and beauty. A very important garden is mentioned in the poem, The Garden of Eden.

        ‘This noble Januarie, with al his might, / In honest wise, as longeth to a knight’ is ironic because he is not noble because of the sins that he committed in his life, line 37, ‘his bodily delit’. This is a personal animosity. The Merchant directs the reader to a classical reference in line 820. It is a book called ‘The Romance of the Rose’. This book is an allegory referring to beauty of the garden that January has built for May and him, ‘Swich deyntee hath in it to walk and play’. There is another classical reference about the garden; about Pluto who is the God of underworld wealth and his young wife Proserpina were they would roam and dance, ‘Aboute that welle, and daunced, as men tolde’. Priapus who is the God of orgiastic pleasure and God of gardens. This seems rather crude but it applies to what January desires to do in his new garden. These characters are political and religious therefore it is an allegory and it would suit a wide Christian audience.

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        On page 64, there is male domination illustrated, ‘…for a smale wiket / He baar alwey of silver a cliket’. January will enter when he pleases with his fresh May and would accomplish things that were not done in bed, ‘…parfourned hem and spedde’. It implies that whoever has the key, has the lady. Nevertheless, a garden is a place for youthful and fresh people, not jealous people. In line 845, there is a heightened verse, exclamatory,            ‘O sodeyn hap, o thou Fortune unstable!’. Heightened language is used when expressing emotive language. The dilemma that January ...

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