Chaucer, 3rd edition, extensively revised and with additional material

Description: An introduction to Chaucer's "life, times, and works" (originally published in 1953; 2nd ed. 1965) which attempts "to suggest (rather than to describe) something of the general quality of Chaucer's age, and to note the chief events of Chaucer's early life." The expansion in the third edition includes a "critical impression" (pp. 165-219) that describes Chaucer's place at the head of the "embourgeoisement" of English literature and the "Gothic" character of his works, particularly their combinations of inorganic structure, nascent realism, and other differences from modern sensibilities.