Chaucer’s Retraction

Chaucer's “Retraction”
The “Retraction”, a fragment that follows the last of the Tales in Chaucer’s masterpiece, has attracted much critical attention. Various literary critics of this particular section in The Canterbury Tales have debated about whether it implies a renunciation on the author’s part of his work, or is intended ironically. However, despite the piece’s satirical tone, it seems most fitting to conclude that Chaucer’s “Retraction” is a sincere gesture, offering his moral stance on the issues that arise throughout the Tales.
Benson comments that “the authenticity of the Retraction has been challenged” (Benson, 2000), and certainly it is possible that “some scribe added them on to Chaucer’s own incomplete copy of the Tales” (Benson, 2000). Establishing authorship of works of that period can be difficult, and there is enough content of a bawdy nature in the Tales that a concerned churchman might have been inspired to round the work off with ...