Chaucer's works abound with biblical quotations and allusions, yet his innovative uses of the Bible have not been adequately explored. Lawrence Besserman, an expert in both the Bible and Chaucer's poetry, remedies this omission. Through close analysis of what Chaucer does with the Bible as well as what he says about it, Besserman at once enhances appreciation of Chaucer's originality and increases understanding of shifting attitudes toward the Bible in fourteenth-century England.Besserman argues that Chaucer's poetics cannot be fully understood apart from his engagement with scriptural issues within late medieval culture. In Chaucer's.day, various factions in England were attempting to redefine the claims of biblical authority in ways that were contentious, even heretical. In works spanning his literary career, most notably the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses biblical allusions and quotations to enter the debate about the reliability of textual tradition. Besserman shows that Chaucer's complex and sometimes shockingly self-reflexive uses of the Bible constitute his creative response to prevalent literary, religious, and philosophical attitudes.
