Book excerpt: Divided between the outer world of affairs and the inner world of poetic insight, Chaucer sought to make sense of his changing, conflicting world. In this volume, the author examines the societal issues that the poet explored in his work. She focuses on three major areas of medieval life: religion; class/commerce; and gender, all of which were experiencing considerable change in the 14th century. The book builds a bridge between an unmediated encounter with Chaucer's texts and the more specialized discussions found in most contemporary criticism, and provides a detailed analysis of Christian culture. By placing each topic in a broad cultural context, should help the reader to better understand the questions that teased Chaucer's imagination into poetry and to enter into the cultural conversation with which he engaged his audience.