An in-depth reading of the meditation on the relation between literary value and social identity in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Robert J. Meyer-Lee is Associate Professor of English at Agnes Scott College. He is author of Poets and Power from Chaucer to Wyatt (Cambridge, 2007) as well as numerous articles on Chaucer, fifteenth-century poetry, and literary value published in journals such as Speculum, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, New Literary History, The Chaucer Review, JEGP, and Exemplaria.

Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction: The Canterbury Tales IV-V and literary value; 1. Clerk; 2. Merchant; 3. Squire; 4. Franklin; Works cited; Index.