Publisher's Synopsis
The main focus of this study is Chaucer's use of the word craft, which in "The Canterbury tales" expands beyond mere technical prowess and becomes emblematic of the human predicament, signaling a disjunction between the individual and the world he or she struggles to control through personal expertise and learned tradition. It examines the metaphysics of Chaucer's epistemology and rhetoric and also examines prose and poetry that spans the course of the old and middle English periods, reflecting human beings in the process of growing aware of their personal power to change the circumstances in which they live.
