An overview of Chaucer's work, focusing on the most canonical texts, such as Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, while also providing some analysis of his minor works.

This book is a lucid introduction and intelligent examination of Chaucer's narrative poetry.

Fourteenth-century author, poet, and civil servant Geoffrey Chaucer has delighted readers through the ages with his colorful tales filled with humanity, grace, and strength. He is best known for ""The Canterbury Tales"", a vibrant account of life in England during his own day. That canonical work, along with some of Chaucer's lesser-known works, is thoughtfully presented in this invaluable reference resource. This new volume in the ""Bloom's How to Write about Literature"" series assists students in developing paper topics about this frequently studied Englishman.

Spanning Chaucer's working life, these four poems build on the medieval convention of 'love visions' - poems inspired by dreams, woven into rich allegories about the rituals and emotions of courtly love. In The Book of the Duchess, the most traditional of the four, the dreamer meets a widower who has loved and lost the perfect lady, and The House of Fame describes a dream journey in which the poet meets with classical divinities. Witty, lively and playful, The Parliament of Birds details an encounter with the birds of the world in the Garden of Nature as they seek to meet their mates, while The Legend of Good Women sees Chaucer being censured by the God of Love, and seeking to make amends, for writing poems that depict unfaithful women. Together, the four create a marvellously witty, lively and humane self-portrait of the poet.

"More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life--yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment, she reconstructs in unprecedented detail the cosmopolitan world of Chaucer's adventurous life, focusing on the places and spaces that fired his imagination. Uncovering important new information about Chaucer's travels, private life, and the early circulation of his writings, this innovative biography documents a series of vivid episodes, moving from the commercial wharves of London to the frescoed chapels of Florence and the kingdom of Navarre, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side. The narrative recounts Chaucer's experiences as a prisoner of war in France, as a father visiting his daughter's nunnery, as a member of a chaotic Parliament, and as a diplomat in Milan, where he encountered the writings of Dante and Boccaccio. At the same time, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of Chaucer's writings, taking the reader to the Troy of Troilus and Criseyde, the gardens of the dream visions, and the peripheries and thresholds of The Canterbury Tales. By exploring the places Chaucer visited, the buildings he inhabited, the books he read, and the art and objects he saw, this landmark biography tells the extraordinary story of how a wine merchant's son became the poet of The Canterbury Tales." -- Publisher's description.

Provides a rich and varied reference resource, illuminating the different contexts for Chaucer and his work.