'The Merchant's Tale' and Moral Chaucer

Author / Editor
Edwards, A. S. G.

Title
'The Merchant's Tale' and Moral Chaucer

Published
Modern Language Quarterly 51 (1990): 409-26.

Description
Surveys earlier responses to MerT and argues that the problems they identify cannot be solved; the "moral vacuum" of the tale leaves no criteria for moral evaluation. MerT is Chaucer's "bleakest" view of the relationship between poetry and morality.

Chaucer Subjects
Merchant and His Tale.