Chaucer and the Social Contest

One of the many resources I am using for my paper is a book called Chaucer and the Social Contest. It was written by Peggy Knapp in 1990 and basically puts Chaucer in a perspective that is based on the culture and larger social situations that were happening during the Middle English time period.

This book was very helpful to me because it allowed me to better understand the Canterbury Tales and why he may have written about the certain themes that he did. Obviously, I was not alive during this time, so it helped to put the Canterbury Tales in a better perspective and gave me a clue of how people may have read it or reacted to it based on the time period they were living in.

Knapp covers the ideas like the division of social duties of the time, Wycliffite thought and practice, and the roles of women. For my paper, I mostly focused on her ideas about the roles of women, but maybe there is something else that will interest one of you! I have the book checked out, so just let me know if any of you would like to take a look at it or borrow it!

Here is the citation:

Knapp, Peggy. Chaucer and the Social Contest. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., 1990. Print