An Introduction To the Canterbury Tales: Reading, Fiction, Context

This critical study of The Canterbury Tales contains full separate readings of each tale, together with clear exposition of historical and literary background. The book approaches Chaucer through modern theoretical perspectives, focusing particularly on gender, political and narratological approaches, and it also presents critical views of Chaucer from the past. Chaucer's reputation as a bawdy humorist and proto-novelist, specializing in character, realism and irony, is re-examined in more modern and subtle terms than the traditional picture usually associated with him.