Preface
Chaucer’s Language
Selections from The Canterbury Tales
The General Prologue
The Knight’s Tale
The Miller’s Prologue and Tale
The Reeve’s Prologue and Tale
The Cook’s Prologue and Tale
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
The Friar’s Prologue and Tale
The Summoner’s Prologue and Tale
The Clerk’s Prologue and Tale
The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale
The Franklin’s Prologue and Tale
The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale
The Prioress’s Prologue and Tale
The Prologue and Tale of Sir Thopas
From The Prologue and Tale of Melibee
The Nun’s Priest’s Prologue and Tale
The Manciple’s Prologue and Tale
From The Parson’s Prologue and Tale
Chaucer’s Retraction—elevated from "Sources and Backgrounds"
Sources and Backgrounds
THE GENERAL PROLOGUE
Giovanni Boccaccio, From the Decameron, First Day, Introduction
Giovanni Boccaccio, From the Decameron, Tenth Day, Conclusion
St. Augustine, [Human Life as a Pilgrimage]
Sir William Thorpe, [On Pilgrimage]
Thomas Wimbledon, [On the Estates]
William Langland, [On Monks]
John Gower, [On Monks]
Wycliffite Estates Criticism
THE MILLER’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
The Three Guests of Heile of Bersele
THE REEVE’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
The Miller and the Two Clerics
THE WIFE OF BATH’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
Jean de Meun, From The Romance of the Rose
Theophrastus, From The Golden Book on Marriage
St. Jerome, From Against Jovinian
Walter Map, From The Letter of Valerius to Ruffinus, against Marriage
From the Gospel According to St. John
From St. Paul to the Corinthians 1
From St. Paul to the Ephesians
From St. Paul to Timothy 1
From St. Paul to Timothy 2
John Gower, The Tale of Florent
THE FRIAR’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
Robert Rypon, A Greedy Bailiff
THE CLERK’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
Giovanni Boccaccio, From the Decameron, Tenth Day, Tenth Tale
Francis Petrarch, The Story of Griselda
Francis Petrarch, [Two Letters to Boccaccio]
From Le Ménagierde Paris
THE MERCHANT’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
The Woman and the Pear-Tree
THE FRANKLIN’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
Giovanni Boccaccio, From the Decameron, Tenth Day, Fifth Tale
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, [On Love and Marriage]
THE PARDONER’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
Jean de Meun, From The Romance of the Rose
The Hermit, Death, and the Robbers
Thomas of Cantimpré, From Liber de Apibus
THE PRIORESS’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
The Story of the Alma Redeptoris Mater
A Miracle of Our Lady
Alma Redemptoris Mater
Pope Gregory X, [On Christian Mistreatment of Jews]
THE PROLOGUE AND TALE OF SIR THOPAS
From Guy of Warwick
THE NUN’S PRIEST’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
William Caxton, From Aesop’s Fables
Marie de France, The Cock and the Fox
From the Roman de Renart, Branch 2
Macrobius, [On Dreams]
Geoffrey of Vinsauf, [Lament on the Death of Richard I]
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, [On the Cock]
THE MANCIPLE’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
Ovid, [The Story of Phoebus and Coronis]
John Gower, The Tale of Phoebus and Cornide
Criticism
F.R.H. Du Boulay, The Historical Chaucer
Arthur W. Hoffman, Chaucer’s Prologue to Pilgrimage: The Two Voices
E. Talbot Donaldson, Chaucer the Pilgrim
Barbara Nolan, "A Poet Ther Was": Chaucer’s Voices in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
George Lyman Kittredge, [The Dramatic Principle of the Canterbury Tales]
George Lyman Kittredge, [The Marriage Group]
Lee Patterson, From The Parson’s Tale and the Quitting of the Canterbury Tales]
Paul Strohm, From Social Chaucer: A Mixed Commonwealth of Style
Carolyn Dinshaw, Eunuch Hermeneutics
Geoffrey Chaucer: A Chronology
Selected Bibliography