Chaucer and the mystics

Chaucer and the Mystics is a contextualization of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in terms of the genre Chaucer himself valorizes in his Retraction, the prose treatise of morality and devotion. The many works of this kind have not yet been studied for their connections with Chaucer's writings - a surprising fact, given Chaucer's interest in them and the occasional inclusion of works like the Parson's Tale, the Tale of Melibee, and the Monk's Tale anonymously in flfteenth-century compendia of devotional treatises. Analogues among the five great Middle English mystics (Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, and Margery Kempe), together with works from the body of anonymous treatises of prose devotion, are described, with attention given to Chaucer's sometimes comic, sometimes serious purposes.