Making It in the 'Merchant's Tale': Chaucer's Signs of January's Fall

Author / Editor
Stock, Lorraine Kochanske.

Title
Making It in the 'Merchant's Tale': Chaucer's Signs of January's Fall

Published
Semiotica 63 (1987): 171-83.

Description
Stock applies semiotic theory to MerT: the reason-passion motif in May's stepping on January's back to climb the pear tree; the cough, the garden, and the May-Mary association; the serpent-Damien; the January-creator. The tale's verbal "signes" parody the Fall of Adam in Eden.

Chaucer Subjects
Merchant and His Tale.