The Structure of The Merchant’s Tale

; I , I ' THE STRUCTURE OF J']-JE MERCHANT'S TALE G.. G. SEDGEWJCK THERE is nothing new in this paper exceptl perhaps, in· the w'ay of assemblage and emphasis.! Nevertheless, . this sort of thing, if done better than it will now be done, mightproperly be excused. The l\1erch'ant and his perf~rmance figure largely in discussions o( chronology, order,. sources, and analogues of The Canterbury TtJles; and all this, of course, is basic and invaluable. But, apart from a remrlrk~ble essay by Professor Tatlock,2 there has been no .really substantial examination of the 'poem's art, no full study of the object ·as in itself it really is-and that still remains,· surely> a function of'criticism. Besides1 as one would expeci:, critics ,are still apt to fight shy of Chaucer's fabliaux or else to handle them in a discursive and gingerly way, although .a.· good deal of the poet's maturest workmanship is to be found in that Lat1n Quarter of the arts. No doubt The. Merchant•j Tale makes strenuous demands on the maturity of its ~ead~rs;. but, equally.. without question, it ranks, both in substan~e and in f~wm-, among the very best and most original of Chaucer's works. One sign of rank is the fact that it is out of category. It uses a fabliau as part of its structure, but as a whole it isn't a fabliau at all; or if it is one, it is · unique in its' kind. In it ~refound, I believe, rriost known devices of satire; but in its total effect,,it is unlike any other satire known to me. If, in the terribly hackneyed phrase, Troilu.> and Criseyde isJ the first '.'psychological J).Ovel," The Mn·chant's Talc may quite as justly be called the first psycho- . lo"gical short .story. In complexity of texture, like the Wife of Bath in ,, ' . person, it PilSses "hem of Ypres and of Gaunt." All these apparently facile , geneni.lizations, I 'am very sure, can be supporced by plenty of specific··evidence; but the full demonstration must await other hands. This paper merely attempts to underline certain phases ·of Chaucer's workmanship· ~she handles what is often considered to be a "ptot suited to the Hatten tot," as an outraged -scholar has called it. Such :a~ attempt is ·all the more desirable, I thinkJ. now that certain important and · well-known seams of Chaucerian ·scholarship are pretty nearly· worked out. It is very improbable indeed that we shall learn any. more about the internal. chronology of The Canlerbury Tales~or about the·order Of the fragments that remain. Whether we wish to or not, we mzesJ accept the text of the tales-at least the text of Groups D, E> and F-as it· is now arranged, willlngly or unwillingly, by all editors of the cycle. And there is no choice left but to accept the present order of the tales as Chaucer~s. final .intention, and to leave aside, as irrelevant to literary criticism, ·the problem of how the order was finally arrived at. Tatlock's essay, to which I • 1This paper was read at the Quebec meeting of rhe Royal Society 6f Canada (Section II) in May, 1947.· 2"Chaucer's Merchant's Tale" (Modern Philology, XXXIIIJ 367-81). 337 338 \ TH.E UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY ' - ' h~ve referred, does ,that, resting, as it naturally would dol on the argument which he himself did so much to develop. No doubt all students of Chaucer should know of his previous vicissitudes of purpose; but they are .finally brought back to the whole affair .of the Me.rchant-:-in the general Prologue, the link with The Clerk's Tale, and his own deliverance-just as they first read it before their faith was shaken, as it may have been, by the higher criticism. ·If there were only one manuscript instead of many, faith wot)ld never have beenshaken at all, since all parts of the whole production, aj it now ·stands, hang together perfectly well. As· corollary to all this, Kitt~edge's famous essay· on uthe Marriage Gro~p" of tales...