Introduction: On Chaucer’s Badness 1. The Catalog of Trees and Epic Digressions of the Knight’s Tale 2. The Broken Arm and Sympathetic Cuckold of the Miller’s Tale 3. The Stoic Dawn Song and Comic Rapes of the Reeve’s Tale 4. The Fornicating Wife and Incomplete Completion of the Cook’s Tale 5. The Bounteous Boat and Prosperity Theology of the Man of Law’s Tale 6. The Forgotten Maiden and Phallic Renaissance of the Wife of Bath’s Tale 7. The Damned Pan and Exemplary Inconsistencies of the Friar’s Tale 8. The Dead Children and Anti-Carnivalesque Humor of the Summoner’s Tale 9. The Wretched Smock and Gendered Theodicy of the Clerk’s Tale 10. The Apologetic Narrator and Fragmented Perspectives of the Merchant’s Tale 11. The Nurse of Digestion and Camp Pleasures of the Squire’s Tale 12. The Stony Lady and Lovely Contradictions of the Franklin’s Tale 13. The Executed Governess and Errant Themes of the Physician’s Tale 14. The Dead Man Walking and Pseudo Crux of the Pardoner’s Tale 15. The Groanworthy Puns and Semantic Enigmas of the Shipman’s Tale 16. The Forgiving Readers and Mitigated Antisemitism of the Prioress’s Tale 17. The Singsong Meter and Aural Agonies of the Tale of Sir Thopas 18. The Immoral Allegory and Boring Maxims of the Tale of Melibee 19. The Hundred Endless Threats and Tragic Genres of the Monk’s Tale 20. The Cock’s Words and Chaucerian Tripletalk of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale 21. The Invisible Nun and Chaste Orgasms of the Second Nun’s Tale 22. The Textbook Rhetoric and Pedantic Poetics of the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale 23. The Empty Birdcage and Paradoxical Punishment of the Manciple’s Tale 24. The Meek Heretic and Narrativeless Narrative of the Parson’s Tale Conclusion: The Better Badness of Chaucer’s Retraction

“Bad Chaucer’s best features are its provocative starting point and its comprehensive commitment to identifying ‘a wider range of lapses and blunders in such topics as thematic consistency, narrative coherency, and character development’ in each of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, even the ones that are frequently overlooked by critics. The author has an impressively broad and comprehensive knowledge of Chaucerian texts and criticism. The writing is lucid, lively, and graceful.”