Chaucer and the Child

This book addresses portrayals of children in a wide array of Chaucerianworks. Situated within a larger discourse on childhood, Ages of Mantheories, and debates about the status of the child in the late fourteenthcentury, Chaucer's literary children-from infant to adolescent-offer ameans by which to hear the voices of youth not prominently treated insocial history. The readings in this study urge our attention to literarychildren, encouraging us to think more thoroughly about the Chauceriancollection from their perspectives. Eve Salisbury argues that the child isneither missing in the late Middle Ages nor in Chaucer's work, but is,rather, fundamental to the institutions of the time and central to thepoet's concerns.