The Image of the Merchant in the Golden Age Theater

Abstract

Our article aims at determining a scheme in order to group the main information about the merchant in the Spanish Golden Age theater, having a look at both the positive and negative images, in perfect agreement with the doctrines of that time. In order to achieve our purpose, we will be using a wide corpus of plays belonging to Alarcón, Calderón, Guillén de Castro, Juan de Matos, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, focusing on the commercial vocabulary (to have, to give, to buy, to sell), the relation between the merchant and power, the allegorical image of the merchant´s ship or the relation between the merchant and women.