An Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer by Tison Pugh (review)

Tison Pugh’s An Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer enters a market already glutted with introductions and companions to Chaucer. Our options include Derek Brewer’s An Introduction to Chaucer (1984, revised as A New Introduction to Chaucer in 1998); Dieter Mehl’s Geoffrey Chaucer, An Introduction to His Narrative Poetry (1986); The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer (1986, rev. 2003); The Oxford Companion to Chaucer (2003); Chaucer: An Oxford Guide (2005); The Yale Companion to Chaucer (2006); Blackwell’s A Companion to Chaucer (2000); Blackwell’s Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales: A Short Introduction (2003); Blackwell’s Concise Companion to Chaucer (2006); Broadview’s A Companion to Chaucer and His Contemporaries (2009); and finally various introductory anthologies like Beryl Rowland’s original Companion to Chaucer Studies (1968, 1979) or Harold Bloom’s Geoffrey Chaucer (1985), including those volumes that introduce particular works, for example Peter G. Beidler’s entry in the Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series for The Wife of Bath (1996). As this expansive but incomplete list attests, the idea of an introduction to Chaucer is an old one, yet these companions truly began to proliferate in the twenty-first century: in spite of their abundance, these introductory texts still seem to be a safe bet for publishers, such that Blackwell could produce three separate volumes in a span of only seven years. Is Pugh’s new book a worthwhile endeavor in the face of this plethora of prolegomena? Whether or not we believe that Chaucer studies needed yet another introductory text, I can say with confidence that Pugh has managed to carve out a small niche for his own book by devoting most of it to plot summaries coupled with running commentary, with a target audience of undergraduates having had little or no exposure to Chaucer or medieval literature. In addition to these lengthy plot synopses, the book also includes some excellent modular features, including a concise and highly accessible guide to Middle English pronunciation. Pugh’s Introduction should prove valuable to instructors as a resource for selective use.

The first chapter takes the form of a serviceable but greatly abbreviated biographical sketch, only eight pages in length. This obligatory discussion of “Chaucer’s Life and Times” includes all the salacious anecdota from the history of Chaucerian biography, even the poet’s alleged beating of a friar on Fleetstreet (2). Unfortunately, Pugh cannot spare the time here to emphasize that the story is almost certainly untrue, or explain the narrative’s rhetorical position in the reclamation of Chaucer in Reformation discourse. In my opinion, this section also mishandles Chaucer’s release from the raptus of Cecily Champaigne, although Pugh does describe the incident as “the most vexing episode of Chaucer’s life” (4). Yet “vexing” seems a curious word choice to describe a possible sexual assault committed by an author often adduced as a proto-feminist, and Pugh provides his readers with little direction about how they should interpret this biographical detail. Perhaps Pugh prefers to leave more substantial discussion of the Champaigne case to the individual classroom in part because his Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer must first present Chaucer as a great author worthy of student attention rather than a potential site of critique. Make no mistake: Pugh’s book is selling Chaucer, consistently advertising the “pleasure” and the “allure” of the author’s poetry, and extolling the poetic genius waiting to be revealed in his “archaic and yet enchanting language” (xii). Readers are even invited to join the ranks of those who “delight in spending time with this man” (xiii), a line that might recall the critiques of the canonization of Chaucer as great author and great man presented in Stephanie Trigg’s 2002 book Congenial Souls. At various later points in An Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer, Pugh again sacrifices some critical complexity in favor of enticing his audience to appreciate Chaucer, but perhaps this is simply Chaucer’s fate in the undergraduate classroom. Pugh’s goals here remain admirable, especially because the all...