No Middle English writer takes up as many different moral genres as Chaucer; the Canterbury Tales explores saints’ Life, pastoral treatise, fürstenspiegel, de casibus tragedy, Marian miracle, and exemplum-style tales oriented toward civic, spiritual, and domestic uses. That his work, so often associated in modern criticism and in the contemporary classroom with a genially ironic outlook, also appears to correspond with late medieval tastes in serious and devotional reading has tended to present something of a problem. This chapter explores the ways in which critical disagreements about the significance of the moral and religious tales can be a proxy for questions about alterity, that is, the problem we inevitably face when we read the works of the past. What we think about “moral Chaucer” will often enough be a reflection of what we think about “medieval Chaucer” and about our relationship with a middle ages whose affective and aesthetic attractions very often exceed the ethical appeal of its devotional commitments and conventions.

Professional teaching and research devoted to the Canterbury Tales largely developed within the modern research university, and that’s where most students of Chaucer learn the disciplinary languages necessary for participation in the field – Middle English and some of its dialects, a little Latin and French, and the discourses of contemporary literary and cultural criticism. But the institutions that house such study are also the site of administrative, curricular, and budgetary decisions that necessarily affect, at one remove or another, work in the field, so ideally Chaucerians and prospective Chaucerians should acquaint themselves as well with the various institutional languages that can be used to recruit attention, resources, and allies to the cause. Becoming more fluent in the campus languages of success, of assessment, and of strategic plans and self-promotion puts us in the position to more effectively help colleagues, administrators, and students understand the answers they get when they ask the question “why Chaucer?”