Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

• Chaucer’s Life and Times
  The Construction of The Canterbury Tales
  Chaucer’s English
  Chaucer’s Versification
  The Reception of Chaucer’s Poetry
  Close Reading and Interpretation
  Editorial Principles

CHAUCER TIMELINE

THE CANTERBURY TALES

Fragment I

• The General Prologue
  The Knight’s Tale
  The Miller’s Prologue
  The Miller’s Tale
  The Reeve’s Prologue
  The Reeve’s Tale
  The Cook’s Prologue
  The Cook’s Tale

Fragment II

• Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale
  The Prologue of the Man of Law’s Tale
  The Man of Law’s Tale

Fragment III

• The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
  The Wife of Bath’s Tale
  The Friar’s Prologue
  The Friar’s Tale
  The Summoner’s Prologue
  The Summoner’s Tale

Fragment IV

• The Clerk’s Prologue
  The Clerk’s Tale
  The Merchant’s Prologue
  The Merchant’s Tale

Fragment V

• The Squire’s Prologue
  The Squire’s Tale
  The Franklin’s Prologue
  The Franklin’s Tale

Fragment VI

• The Physician’s Tale
  The Pardoner’s Prologue
  The Pardoner’s Tale

Fragment VII

• The Shipman’s Tale
  The Prioress’s Prologue
  The Prioress’s Tale
  The Prologue to Chaucer’s Tale of Sir Thopas
  Chaucer’s Tale of Sir Thopas
  The Prologue to Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee
  Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee
  The Monk’s Prologue
  The Monk’s Tale
  The Nun’s Priest’s Prologue
  The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Fragment VIII

• The Second Nun’s Prologue
  The Second Nun’s Tale
  The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue
  The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale

Fragment IX

• The Manciple’s Prologue
  The Manciple’s Tale

Fragment X

• The Parson’s Prologue
  The Parson’rsquo;s Tale
  Chaucer’s Retraction

Appendix: Background Documents

A BASIC CHAUCER GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
TEXTUAL SOURCE LIST

About the Author

Robert Boenig is Professor of English at Texas A&M University.

Andrew Taylor is Professor of English at the University of Ottawa.

Reviews

“I can already tell you that this text—unlike any other Chaucer text—makes it easy for students to read and understand Chaucer. It has certainly made my job easier!” — Mary Flowers Braswell, University of Alabama at Birmingham“This attractive, readable edition features Chaucer’s Middle English text, marginal glosses, explanatory footnotes, and illustrative facsimile pages. Especially helpful are the appended ‘background documents,’ historical and literary, which provide key contexts for the interpretation of Chaucer’s work. A useful bibliography concludes the volume. Highly recommended.” — Ann W. Astell, University of Notre Dame“Britain’s greatest medieval poem by its greatest non-dramatic poet: this new edition will be attractive to students, scholars, and general readers alike. Facsimiles of individual leaves from the Ellesmere Manuscript have been scattered throughout the volume to give us a real sense of what it would have been like to open The Canterbury Tales for the first time in the years immediately following Chaucer’s death.” — Larry Scanlon, Rutgers University“With its meticulously edited text, generous glosses and notes, abundant selections from relevant medieval sources, and attractive reproductions of the sumptuous pages of the Ellesmere Manuscript, the Broadview Canterbury Tales will become the obvious choice for teachers, students, and general readers alike.” — John T. Sebastian, Loyola University New Orleans“This is the best edition of the Tales I’ve found to date.” — John Marlin, College of Saint Elizabeth