Michaela Paasche Grudin contends that for Chaucer speech is the heart of culture and that his major work comprises a copious and subtle analysis of the spoken word. By paying close attention to this underlying view of discourse and to Chaucer's fascination with communication as a reciprocal process between speaker and listener, Grudin provides surprising new readings of Chaucer's poetry. These diverge radically from conventional "dramatic" interpretations and from "exegetical" readings that see Chaucer in sympathy with the orthodox medieval Christian fear of and contempt for the work of the tongue.

Grudin considers Book of the Duchess, House of Fame, Parliament of Fowls, Troilus and Criseyde, and many of the Canterbury Tales. In her readings she explores Chaucer's questioning of whether the social order can survive the discord of human voices. She offers new insights into such topics as discursive situations and the frame narrative; the interplay between authoritative and free discourse; misinterpretation and the role of the listener; the poetics of guile and the place of the poet's own discourse; and the problem of closure.