Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale is the second of two narratives found in Fragment IV of the Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, to be read following The Clerk’s Tale. In the Hengwrt manuscript, and some others, the Merchant’s Tale’s Prologue is absent, indicating that Chaucer composed and included it at a later date to make the text a companion piece to The Clerk’s Tale (Cooper, 1996). Some critics have proposed that the Merchant’s Tale was originally intended for another narrator, because on occasion the Merchant refers to “secular” people as though he were a religious figure (1251; 1322; Cooper, 1996). J. M. Manly suggested that the tale was originally intended for the Monk as a response to The Shipman’s Tale (which in turn, he argues, was

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Citation: Hanna, Natalie. "The Merchant's Tale". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 November 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=36247, accessed 21 November 2024.]