Chaucer on Suspending Disbelief in the <i>Merchant’s Tale</i>

ABSTRACT By mixing fayerye with realism in the Merchant’s Tale, Chaucer invites us to explore how we respond to fiction, mythical languages, and imagination. Do we anxiously brush off what happens in an enchanted garden? Do we refuse to be credulous? The magical setting of the action forces us out of a realist prism into a reflection on interpretive spontaneity, and it delivers a deeper message about suspending disbelief. Chaucer shows us that faith in the power of poesis provides a means to grapple with the unspeakable and to heal wounds of love, death, and sexuality. Just as children watching puppet shows respond differently at different points in their cognitive development, so an old man must question what he sees in order to believe and disbelieve in new ways. Chaucer’s retelling of a staple medieval fabliau anatomizes fantasy in order to give us vital new ears to hear and eyes to see.