The Canterbury Tales: The Clerk's Tale Analysis

The "Clerk's Tale" is set in a medieval Italian village called Salucia (Saluzzo) in a province that encompasses the plain at the foot of a mountain. Our first view of Salucia is one of abundance an...

Third Person (Omniscient)The narrator of the "Clerk's Tale" has a fairly unlimited perspective on what's going on in the characters' heads... when he chooses to use it.And he doesn't always choose...

Family Drama / RomanceThe "Clerk's Tale" is a narrative with a love story at its heart, but this love story is pretty different from what you might expect. You know the boy-meets-girl rom-com shtic...

Outraged, MelodramaticWhen the narrator of the "Clerk's Tale" interrupts his narration to provide his point of view—which he does often—he lets us in on his deep outrage at what Walter is putti...

Iambic Pentameter, Rime Royal in Six Sections (For more on Iambic Pentameter, see the "Writing Style" section of our guide to the Canterbury Tales Prologue and Frame Story.) The "Clerk's Tale" is...

This is the tale that the Clerk tells the pilgrims on the road to Canterbury, but he wants to make it very clear that it doesn't originate with him. "I wolde yow telle a tale, which that I / Lerned...

The ending of the "Clerk's Tale" is totally strange and unexpected. After telling a tale dedicated to exploring and rewarding the complete passivity and obedience of its heroine to her husband, the...

We'll be real with you: Middle English is difficult. But thousands of people have mastered the art of reading it, and so can you. You'll sound sort of like the sleepwalking Scottish zombie lovech...

Exposition (Initial Situation): A marquis named Walter marries a poor but virtuous maiden named Grisilde despite his fears that marriage will cramp his style. He makes Grisilde promise to obey h...

Initial Wretchedness at Home and the "Call"A virtuous and beautiful maiden named Grisilde lives a life of hard work and deprivation with her father Janicula, the poorest of the poor inhabitants o...

A marquis named Walter, pressed by his lord to take a bride, marries and ennobles a poor young woman named Grisilde on the condition that she obey him in everything. Having decided to test Gr...

The rhyme royal form in which the "Clerk's Tale" is written (the seven-line stanza rhyming ababbcc) was first introduced in English by Chaucer in his Troilus and Criseyde and Parlement of Foules (s...

Move along, folks: this is one of the tamer of the Canterbury Tales. People in this story know what a womb is, and Janicula worries that Walter may just be using Grisilde for sex, but that's as s...

Literary and Philosophical References Job (932)Letter of James (1154)Wife of Bath (1170)Chichevache—a cow from medieval folklore who feeds on patient wives—and is therefore very skinny (1...