Overview: This volume situates Chaucer‘s life and writings within the context of fourteenth-century history, national and international, giving a broad general outline of the period for those coming to it for the first time. The book focuses on particular poetic texts, including The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Fowls, interpreting them in the light of contemporary ideology and literary practice, and underlining the specific relations between texts and audiences in a manuscript culture.
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