Chaucerian Ecopoetics performs ecocritical close readings of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry. Shawn Normandin explains how Chaucer's language demystifies the aesthetic charm of his narratives and calls into question the anthropocentrism they often depict. This text combines ecocriticism with reading techniques associated with deconstruction, to provide innovative interpretations of the General Prologue, the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, the Reeve's Tale, the Franklin's Tale, the Physician's Tale, and the Monk's Tale. In stressing the importance of rhetorical nuance and literary form, Chaucerian Ecopoetics enables readers to better understand the ideological prehistory of today's environmental crisis.

1. Introduction: Chaucer and Ecopoetics.- 2. Ecophobia and the
Knight's Tale
.- 3. Nocturnal Ecologies: Metaphor in the
Miller's Tale
and the
Reeve's Tale
.- 4. Iterability, Anthropocentrism, and the
Franklin's Tale
.- 5. The Unnatural Personifications of the
Physician's Tale
.-  6. Ruminating On and In the
Monk's Tale
.           

Shawn Normandin
is Associate Professor of English at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea.