In this book I have tried to trace the growth of medieval English narrative in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This might seem an ambitious undertaking if I proposed to offer a single consistent and absolutely original thesis. My aim, however, is much more modest: it is to attempt a broad reconstruction of this development, within the framework of certain trends that I consider important, illustrating it as clearly as possible and adding my own interpretations where I can usefully do so.

Nothing of this nature has previously been attempted for medieval English narrative, by either Italian or continental or, as far as I can discover, English critics. My first task, therefore, was to organise the material. I have done this according to a mixed set of criteria: the chapters are divided according to literary ‘genres’ in the traditional way, but within these the historical categories tend to overlap. Certain parts of the book are devoted to types of narrative setting, such as the dream and the vision, which do not belong to any genre; others deal with structural systems, like the story collection, which include various genres. Finally almost half the book is concerned with a single author, Chaucer, in whose work all genres and all structures come together.