ABSTRACT
Reading a book is a complex thing to do; giving a true reading of a book illimitably complex. In reading great and ancient works, such as Piers Plowman, the gap between author's and reader's meaning may be very wide, and ways of closing it are various and unsatisfying. Less extreme practitioners may try to bring one side or the other closer in; either rendering the poem into its modern equivalent (as Dryden did with Geoffrey Chaucer) or calling up scholarship to make the modern reader acquire medieval reading habits. This chapter recognizes at the centre of the complex otherness of medieval civilization the friendly face of Chaucer, assuring us in the opening of Book of Troilus and Criseyde that he understands our difficulties perfectly. Medieval anthologies exist (for example, John Audelay's) in which the compiler has put his favourite poems, some clearly by himself, some clearly not, and some uncertain, but has not distinguished them.
