'For Craft Is Al, Whoso That Do It Kan': The Genre of 'The Merchant's Tale'

Author / Editor
Arrathoon, Leigh A.

Title
'For Craft Is Al, Whoso That Do It Kan': The Genre of 'The Merchant's Tale'

Published
Leigh A. Arrathoon, ed. Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction (Rochester, Mich.: Solaris Press, 1986), pp. 385-409.

Description
MerT is an ethical narrative in which the aenigmalogue (puzzling narrative surface) is blended with the apologue (Augustinian "oversense"), thus revealing the Merchant as a Manichean and January as a parody of Jovinian. The apologue is signaled by allusion, irony, undercutting, and disputational structure.

Alternative Title
Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction.

Chaucer Subjects
Merchant and His Tale.