Geoffrey Chaucer laid the foundation for English verse. A fourteenth-century master storyteller and comic genius, and the greatest English author of the Middle Ages, he is most famous for his "Canterbury Tales. This volume focuses on "The Canterbury Tales" with an eye toward Chaucer\'s English background and the effects this had on his monumental verse; although the "tales" were written in Middle English and published in England, essays will explore the distinct transnational quality of characterization and narrative. Other essay topics will examine essential topics such as gender and horror in The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer\'s links to Shakespeare and Boccaccio.