Steve Ellis shows how the Canterbury Tales has been radically opened up by modern critical theory. The book provides an introduction to a wide range of theoretical approaches to Chaucer, including the feminist, Lacanian, Bakhtinian, deconstructive, semiotic and anthropological schools.

This convenient single volume collection of key critical analyses of Chaucer, which includes work from some journals and studies that are not always easily available, will be indispensable to students of Medieval Studies, Medieval Literature and Chaucer, as well as to general readers who seek to widen their understanding of the forces behind Chaucer's writing.

Publishers Acknowledgements Editor's Acknowledgements Editions and Abbreviations Used in the Text
1. Introduction
2. H. MARSHALL LEICESTER, JR, Structure as Deconstruction: 'Chaucer and Estates Satire' in the 'General Prologue', or Reading Chaucer as a Prologue to the History of Disenchantment
3. MARK A. SHERMAN, The Politics of Discourse in Chaucer's 'Knight's Tale'
4. PEGGY KNAPP, Robyn the Miller's Thrifty Work
5. CAROLYN DINSHAW, The Law of Man and its 'Abhomynacions'
6. ARTHUR LINDLEY, 'Vanysshed Was This Daunce, He Nyste Where': Alisoun's Absence in the 'Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale'
7. ELAINE TUTTLE HANSEN, The Powers of Silence: the Case of the Clerk's Griselda
8. CAROLYN P. COLLETTE, Umberto Eco, Semiotics, and the 'Merchant's Tale'
9. JOHN STEPHENS &
MARCELLA RYAN, Metafictional Strategies and the Theme of Sexual Power in the Wife of Bath's and Frankiln's Tales
10. LEE PATTERSON, The Subject of Confession: the Pardoner and the Rhetoric of Penance
11. ELIZABETH ROBERTSON, Aspects of Female Piety in the 'Prioress's Tale'
12. BRITTON J. HARWOOD, Signs and / as Origin: Chaucer's 'Nun's Priest's Tale'
13. PAUL STROHM, A Mixed Commonwealth of Style
Further Reading Index