Diversity characterizes the genre and subject matter of Chaucer's poetry. His compositions range from reworkings of classical myth to the conceit of contemporary pilgrimage from London to Canterbury with which Chaucer frames his anthology of stories, The Canterbury Tales. The interpretative methodologies employed by contributors to this volume are also varied, drawing on literary, linguistic, translational, historical, manuscript, and psychoanalytic studies to offer new readings of tales from The Canterbury Tales, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde.
The contributions to Chaucer continue a tradition of readers, from Chaucer's contemporaries onwards, finding in Chaucer's poetry connections to their own contemporary concerns about the environment, masculinities, women's subjectivities, race, violence, social class, colonialism, and how the written word is subject to manipulation by those with vested interests.