Chaucer at Work: The Making of The Canterbury Tales

This aims to provide an introduction to The Canterbury Tales which avoids excessive amounts of background information and involves both lecturer and student in the discovery of how Chaucer composed his famous work. Taking a practical approach, it presents a series of sources and contexts to be considered in conjunction with key passages from Chaucer’s poems. It provides sets of questions encouraging the reader to examine the text in detail and build on his or her own observations. Each chapter is self-contained, focusing on a single tale, but themes such as the construction of character, literary conventions, the representation of women, and Chaucer’s treatment of gentillesse and patience, are examined throughout. The interactive design should encourage attentive reading, close observation, critical independence and lively debate. The text is designed for use by undergraduate and A-level students taking courses in Medieval and English Literature.