American Chaucers

Soon after their nation's independence, Americans began remaking Chaucer into their own image. In the 1800s, publishers exploited middle-class desires to appear well informed by including bowdlerized Chaucers in parlor-room anthologies. Before WWI, dramatist Percy MacKaye used Chaucer to promote progressive ideals. After the war, James Hall used his reading of Chaucer to refract his prisoner-of-war experience. Until the Depression, women used Chaucer to circumvented educational barriers. Finally, a 2001 film adopted Chaucer to advocate calculated risk-taking, a quintessential American value. All of these popular appropriations have much to tell us about teaching Chaucer.

Candace Barrington is Associate Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University.