Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature

Description: Studies the development of mercantile practice in the late Middle Ages and depictions of merchants in English literature, from early satires to greater acceptability. Includes sections on merchants in Langland's "Piers Plowman," Gower's "Mirour de l'Omme," the "Book of Margery Kempe," the "Libelle of Englyshe Polycye," the "Tale of Beryn," the York cycle, and Chaucer's CT. Chapter 4, "The Deliberate Ambiguity of Chaucer's Anxious Merchants" (pp. 77-100), assesses Chaucer's concern with the "efficacy of satire" as he offers both pro- and antimercantile treatments in the GP description of the "elusive" Merchant, the "unmercantile" MerT, and ShT, where mercantilism is displaced to France. Through this variety, Ladd traces what "Chaucer requires from his readers.".

Chaucer Subjects: Merchant and His Tale; Shipman and His Tale; Chaucerian Apocrypha