CANTERBURY TALES BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER INTRODUCTION GETS born on the edge of a new era stand in peculiar danger of being misunderstood and depreciated by the generations that follow. Since time never stands still, and one age is forever melting into the next, any poet has to take a rather desperate chance of .appealing to readers beyond his own day. There is always the possibility, to be sure, that he may be more highly esteemed than by his contempo rariesa faint hope that has buoyed up many who were destined to drown in the waters of oblivion but this does not often happen. The inevitable revaluation usually marks the poet down to a lower figure. Sometimes he has to wait a few centuries be tore he is understood and appreciated again. John Donne is an example in point. If the shift of ideas and taste can be so upsetting, what is likely to be the fate of a poet who happens to write while his medium q expression is in process of change? Suppose the form of verbs and nouns is alteref...