Portable Chaucer

In the fourteenth century Geoffrey Chaucer who served three kings as a customs official and special envoy virtually invented English poetry. He did so by wedding the language of common speech to metrical verse creating a medium that could accommodate tales of courtly romance bawdy <i>fabliaux</i> astute psychological portraiture dramatic monologues moral allegories and its author's astonishing learning in fields from philosophy to medicine and astrology. Chaucer's accomplishment is unequalled by any poet before Shakespeare and--in <i>The Canterbury Tales</i> and <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>--ranks with that of the great English novelists. <p/>Both <i>The Canterbury Tales</i> and <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> are presented complete in this anthology in fresh modern translations by Theodore Morrison that convey both the gravity and gaiety of the Middle English originals. <i>The Portable Chaucer</i> also contains selections from <i>The Book of Duchess The House of Fame The Bird's Parliament</i> and <i>The Legend of Good Women</i> together with short poems. Morrison's introduction is vital for its insights into Chaucer as man and artist and as a product of the Middle Ages whose shrewdness humor and compassion have a wonderfully contemporary ring.