Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales: A Short Introduction (Blackwell Introductions to Literature)

This concise and lively survey introduces students with no prior knowledge to Chaucer, and particularly to the 'Canterbury Tales'. Written in an invitingly inclusive yet intellectually sophisticated style, it provides essential facts about the poet, including a biography and sketch of his major works, as well as offering a framework for thinking creatively about his writing. Chapters focus upon and promote an engaged reading of the 'Canterbury Tales', introducing previous scholarly opinion as necessary. John Hirsh encourages the student to read the work less in terms of literary realism, with a focus upon individual pilgrims and the way they react to each other, than as a socially constructed production in which the persons and the purposes of the pilgrims are realized by a series of considered constructions which indicate both authorial meaning and cultural context. Readers also gain a sense of Chaucer's other works, for example why his translation of Boethius was important, and what the background was to works such as 'Troilus and Criseyde', the 'Book of the Duchess', and the 'Parliament of Fowls'. Consideration of themes such as gender crosses over various chapters. The book provides the ideal aid to understanding and appreciating Geoffrey Chaucer and his works.